On 17 February from 12:15 to 14:15, a workshop on engaging volunteers will take place in Room 206 at Lossi 36.
Emergencies put the capacity of official crisis management actors to respond and provide assistance to the test. During and after emergencies, spontaneous and informal forms of help often emerge: neighbours support one another, communities organise themselves, and information, resources and assistance are shared. At the same time, informal assistance can prove ineffective if necessary resources, coordination or information are lacking, and in some cases it may even create additional risks.
In the workshop, we will work through a scenario, discuss the role of informal volunteering and explore how it can be integrated into official crisis management. During the session, we will examine possible approaches — tools, recommendations and methods — gathered from different regions of the world that help better understand and integrate community-based assistance into crisis preparedness and response.
The workshop will be led by Dr Matthieu Branlat and Dr Jacqueline Floch, crisis management experts and researchers of community engagement from Norway (SINTEF). Their work focuses on how community-based and informal assistance emerges in crises and how it can be better integrated into official crisis management systems.
The workshop is organised within the framework of the Horizon Europe SYNERGIES project.
