United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Mar 2013
InterWorks conducted a Situational Winter Emergency Training (SWET) workshop in Almaty, Kazakhstan from 11-15 March 2013. The workshop was an intensive five-day training course in the primary technical sectors involved in large international humanitarian emergency response operations. Participants came from four Central Asian Republics; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The course was designed for both generalists and specialists working or intending to work at the field level in international humanitarian operations. As such, the course focused on the level of technical detail that all field personnel should be expected to know about each of the sectors covered, regardless of their own particular specialty or field of expertise. The primary content topics covered were:
- Basic Human Rights and Refugee Protection
- Winter Shelter and Site Planning
- Nutrition, Food
- Winter Heating, Lighting and Cooking
- Registration and Distribution
- Water Supply and Sanitation
- Winter Logistics
- Coordination of these critical activities into a rational overall response
The workshop was designed to expose participants to the recurrent problems in international response in the sectors covered, and to provide classroom practice in applying the standards and indicators covered in each sector, particularly under winter conditions. Key learning points were illustrated through table-top simulations and exercises, short video-based case studies, role plays, and hands-on planning practice wherever possible. A half-day field trip was organized to KAZNEX – related factories in Almaty producing humanitarian relief items, and a practical analysis exercise using a warehouse for a programming exercise in converting this facility to a winter shelter.
The process of education is organized in a very effective way: theory goes in proportion with practice/exercises in groups. The group members are always changing and it helps to get to know all of them better, it helps to liberate yourself and makes the sociability grow.
– Workshop participant
