Hazardous Environment Awareness Training (HEAT)

Danish Refugee Council’s Hazardous Environment Awareness Training (HEAT) is an in-person, personal safety training course for preparing the participant to visit unfamiliar environments which experience substantial, multiple or intensive threats and hazards. Participant competencies are gradually strengthened through theoretical sessions, practical skills building exercises and immersive simulations, set within a fictional, scenario-based context.

Course elements:
• Medical Response
• Threats and Hazards
• Sexual Violence
• Personal Safety
• Safety Risk Management
• Communication Devices
• Vehicle Safety and Driving in Hostile Environments
• Coping with Capture
• Inter-personal Communication and Negotiation
• Mine and UXO Awareness
• Stress Management and Psychological First Aid

HEAT is conducted in both a conference room setting and in field conditions including presentations, discussions, and simulation-based exercises. Participants should be ready to spend time outdoors in the prevailing weather conditions, move on foot for shorter distances in terrain, jump in and out of vehicles, move for cover, and encounter stressful situations under the guidance and support of the course instructors.

We expect participants to be ready to start the course on the first day early in the morning and finish on the last day late in the afternoon, therefore we recommend that the participant arrives to the location of the course the day before and departs the day after.