Asia Pacific regional disaster response team training has been conducted from 20th to 26th of August. Around 30 delegates of Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies of Australia, Pakistan, Thailand, Solomon Islands, North Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Mongolia has participated in the training. The training was facilitated by the delegates of IFRC.
This years RDRT training has been held at the Youth development center of Mongolia Red Cross Society. In case of disaster situation in Asia Pacific region, which consists of 32 countries, members of National Societies of the region who are trained in this training will be deployed immediately to support the responding NS. Disaster management team leader of MRCS, Mr Davaajargal.B, who was trained in last year’s RDRT training, was deployed to support the recovery operation of the flood disaster in Pakistan in May 2017.
RDRT is a cost-effective regional disaster response support developed by IFRC and is considered as a key element in IFRC coordinated response to sudden as well as slow onset disasters.
The participants gained knowledge on methods of assessing the situation, analyzing the needs and risks, as well as providing rescue operations, preparing the plan of action and coordinating their activities with officials and learning how to deal with media etc. Most importantly, they strengthened their knowledge and lessons learned through simulation exercises. The participants acted out scenes from demanding visa to preparing to leave to passing through the immigration etc.
For this year, IFRC created the database of trained members of Asia Pacific region. The system allows IFRC to alert and choose the members to be deployed in short span of time as well as members to communicate and share information with each other.
The participants for the training is composed of people who are vastly experienced at providing disaster response in their respective countries with wide sectorial expertise from disaster management, health, logistics to information technology.
Mongolia, country with extreme continental climate with various types of disaster occurrence, is hosting this year’s RDRT training. Participants visited Red Cross mid-level branch of Nalaikh district and Erdene soum of Tov province to do simulation exercise of disaster response.