USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) Dec 2007
InterWorks facilitated a five-day Introduction to Assessment workshop at the USAID North Quincy Street facility in Arlington, VA, USA from December 3-7, 2007. This workshop was the 8th such workshop facilitated by InterWorks since December 2002.
Revamped earlier in 2007 to align with new OFDA policies and procedures and a continuing evolution of the humanitarian assistance community, the course was designed to improve participants’ skills in assessing information about disasters and emergencies as well as in evaluating proposals submitted to USAID/OFDA for funding.
The workshop included a synthesis exercise as its capstone event to illustrate the importance of an inter-disciplinary, coordinated approach after a disaster. The exercise allowed participants to be actively engaged in the exercise to illustrate the complexities of disasters and of assessments. Teams applied technical sector standards and indicators from their FOGs and Sphere Handbooks.
I was totally a foreigner for the course at the beginning but now I feel that I have accumulated a lot of the valuable knowledge. At this point I also understood more than ever how much OFDA strives to save lives all over the world without having any boundary and discrimination.
– Workshop participant