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Syria

NRC launches its Frontline Humanitarian Toolkit in Syria

This week, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), one of the world’s largest and most well-respected NGOs, rolls out an innovative solution to reach inaccessible humanitarian aid workers in Syria – the Frontline Humanitarian Toolbox.

The NRC helps those forced to flee, supporting them to build a new future. It works across 30 countries, providing food, assistance, clean water, shelter, legal aid and education.

Although the NRC has attempted to employ remote management techniques in Syria, contact with partner staff is still extremely difficult and completely impossible in many locations.

The decisions humanitarian workers need to make, every day, are often crucial – the difference between success and failure. When delivering humanitarian aid, making the wrong choice can be life-threatening to not only the individual but to the team and the communities surrounding them.

With the war not expected to end any time soon, the need to find an alternative way to reach aid workers in the field with crucial skills and knowledge grew ever more urgent - the solution is the Frontline Humanitarian Toolbox.

The Frontline Humanitarian Toolbox is an innovative, interactive online training platform designed and created by UK-based DTS, the technology company that created the RedR “Mission Ready” platform back in 2016 and uses DTS’ own Near-Life technology. Designed in partnership with the NRC, Spirit and Sida, from this week it will be rolled out to Arabic-speaking humanitarian aid workers across Syria. The NRC hopes that the platform will help save many more lives by imparting crucial skills.

DTS was co-founded by filmmakers Mike Todd and Geseth Garcia. Mike Todd was invited to the World Humanitarian Summit last year to discuss how innovative training methods such as the Frontline Humanitarian Toolkit and Mission Ready can keep humanitarian aid workers safe.

Christine Chamoun, Access and Partnership Advisor for the Syrian Response Office of the NRC, said: “Communities inside Syria are constantly on the move, fleeing dangers created by changing front lines. Shifting pockets of access creates barriers to people in need of emergency aid, and besieged and hard-to-reach areas are nearly impossible to access. This online training is a way for us to continue to impart crucial skills that will help to save lives and keep aid workers safe in an extremely dangerous environment.”

Mike Todd, co-founder of DTS, said: “We’re really pleased to be able to use our technology to support the Norwegian Refugee Council and its partners. Our Near-Life technology and approach allows realistic training online in a way that simply wasn’t possible in the past. It will improve knowledge and awareness regarding some of the key challenges humanitarian aid workers are likely to face, and will teach the skills they need to stay safe and continue their vital work in the field.”

Using local actors filmed on location in Jordan, the interactive scenarios give aid workers insight into the security situations they will be likely to encounter. Consequently, when confronted with comparable situations in the real world, they will intuitively lean toward the most suitable, safest decision.

The Frontline Humanitarian Toolbox is expected to result in the improvement of outcomes in the field, saving of many more lives in Syria.

ENDS

Press contact: Emma McCallum – 07927042054 / emma@emccallumpr.com