On 7 February, the consortium of EU co-financed project ADAPT, which aims to improve emergency evacuations for vulnerable persons, came together in Brussels for their final international event.

The overall results of the projects were presented, including the ADAPT-DB software, which helps to make relevant data about people with special needs in emergency evacations usable for rescue workers. However, the main focus of the event was the community-based management approach, which the local stakeholders from the implementing communities developed from their experiences on the local level. The official guideline document on community-based management of data based disaster prevention for vulnerable groups was introduced at the event and is since available on the project website.

(l.t.r.) Maria Gasser, mayor of Klausen; Kerstin Schöniger, mayor of Rodewisch (Vogtland County); Biljana Zuber, European Commission DG ECHO; Giuseppe Merlino, vice mayor of Saponara; Ivo Bonamico, Secretary General of SAM.I.

Representatives of the municipalities that supported the project were also present and, together with the national project coordinators, reported about the implementation on their local level and how it improves their local disaster resilience for vulnerable groups.

Ms Biljana Zuber, from the European Commission’s DG ECHO, was a guest speaker at the event and informed the consortium about the upcoming call for prevention and preparedness projects that may be an option for follow-ups to ADAPT.

The project will remain active in the implementing communities beyond the project timeframe, which officially ends at the end of February. Data collection will continue and in some place, public stakeholders have committed to delivering additional data in the near future.

More information on the ADAPT project is available on the project website at http://adapt.samaritan-international.eu/

 Pictures: Markus Trocker, WK

Mr. Jiří Kuncman, long-time chairman of the Czech Samaritans, unexpectedly passed away on 8 February 2017.

As a co-founder of his association, his commitment helped shape ASČR into the established Samaritan organisation it is today.
We are particularly thankful for his part in enriching our network with the membership of our Czech colleagues.

We express our condolences to his family, his friends and all of his long-time colleagues.
His legacy will live on in his association and will ensure that Samaritans across Europe will always keep him in fond memory.

Experts from six Samaritan organisations came together in Frankfurt on 6/7 March to work out a concept for a new international project.

Civil protection and social or care services are two main pillars of the SAM.I. members, with some organisations having a stronger focus on one or the other. After discussing future cooperation in civil protection at an event earlier this year in Brussels, the Samaritans developed the initial idea. Building upon previous international projects such as SAMETS, which brought expertise in psychosocial care to the emergency temporary shelters operated by civil protection forces, the group brought the idea one step further:

Not only should more expertise in care be shared with civil protection workers, but experts and professionals in care should also have a basic grasp of civil protection concepts and operating methods. This way, both groups can cooperate a lot better in case of large-scale emergencies. This improvement in preparedness will directly benefit the particularly vulnerable groups of people usually utilising care services.

Together with the disaster research unit of the Free University of Berlin, SAM.I. members ASB, ASBÖ, FSR, IDC, USB, and WK are currently working on finalising their project proposal, which will be handed in to the European Commission’s DG ECHO. The deadline is in early May.

First aid trainers from LSA visited their Ukrainian colleagues from SSU from 13-17 March 2017. They held several courses for employees and volunteers.

LSA first aid trainer Dace Kailovica instructing two young colleagues from SSU.

Two Latvian Samaritans travelled to Kiev, to give a total of four courses for staffers and volunteers. Employees from five regional branches of SSU took part in the international courses, as did numerous volunteers. The courses were in preparation for the Kiev Marathon, which took place in early April. SSU volunteers were tasked with accompanying the event and providing first aid to the participants if needed.

Apart from the practical exchange in form of the first aid courses, trainers and participants also took the opportunity to get to know each other and learn more about the organisations of their international Samaritan counterparts.

Photos: LSA

Over the last few weeks, Secretary General Ivo Bonamico visited two organisations that expressed their interest in future cooperation with SAM.I.

On 17 February, the SAM.I. delegation met with the organisation SRCE from Croatia, an association of children with development disabilities, disabled people and their families. SRCE provides a variety of social services for this target group. Part of their primary goals are to bring children with and without disabilities together and to create community support that provides a dignified life and equal opportunities.

SRCE director Jelena Kovacevic showed the SAM.I. delegation their local activities and informed them about their numerous previous projects, which they conducted with a variety of international and national partners, donors and grant-givers.

On 3 April, SAM.I. representatives travelled to the Macedonia, to meet the local NGO „Community Development Institute“ (CDI). CDI works in volunteer training to support the social and economic development of mostly rural communitites.

Director Sreten Koceski invited the guests from SAM.I. to visit one of the working meetings of local stakeholders. There, they could gain a first impression of the bottom-up approach to foster civic commitment that CDI is working on. In this particular case, volunteer trainers were in the process of learning about new equipment meant to improve the livelihoods of local agricultural producers. CDI has a long history of conducting community-based projects like this with the support of international or national grants and also have extensive experience in EU-funded projects.

SRCE and CDI will present their organisations as membership applicants at the next meeting of the presidium, which is scheduled to take place on 4 May in Brussels.

After introducing themselves to the presidium at their meeting on 4 May 2017 in Brussels, the organisations CDI from Macedonia and SRCE from Croatia have joined the SAM.I. network. 

The two organisations “Community Development Institute” (CDI) from Macedonia and SRCE from Croatia had expressed their interest in membership in SAM.I. at the end of last year. In preparation for the meeting of the presidium, a delegation of the SAM.I. General Secretariat had visited both organisations and got a first hand impression of their activities. Both organisations introduced themselves to the presidium in Brussels, which approved their accession to the network after a two week consideration period.

CDI is an NGO from Macedonia working for the social and economic development of, mostly rural, communities. They work on the basis of local action groups of stakeholders who are and/or train volunteers for the hands-on work in the communities. The establishment of local volunteer groups helps to make the projects sustainable, as they continue their work after CDI helped them to get started and trained. The actual activities range from new economic opportunities for the population of structurally weak areas to various social services.

The association SRCE is a civil society organization in the City of Sveti Ivan Zelina in Croatia. It is based on a parents’ initiative with the aim of bringing together children with disabilities, people with disabilities and their families. Furthermore the objective is to create community support that provides a dignified life of equal opportunities in the communities. SRCE was founded in 2010. The association currently has 18 employees, 189 members and works with 122 volunteers
 

Besides the introduction of the new members, the presidium also used its meeting to discuss the next specific steps to implement the strategy that was developed over the course of 2016. One important aspect is that there will be new structures at the member organisations with the task to coordinatively lead specific fields of activities such as first aid, social services, volunteer work, civil protection and humanitarian aid. The goal is to facilitate the exchange of expertise among the organisations and to develop joint positions in European policy concerning the named areas.

The INDRIX project held a workshop in Turin, Italy from 20-21 May 2017 to evaluate the questionnaires developed to gather data for the social resilience index.

Since the last workshop in Hamburg, the locally operative project partners ANPAS, LSA and WK had conducted initial test surveys with the first version of the questionnaires. While several indicators of the Social Resilience Index can be drawn from statistical data, the questionnaires to stakeholders and citizens fill the information gaps that cannot be found in publicly available numbers.

The questionnaires checked pieces of information like awareness of disaster risk and corresponding campaigns or matters concerrning the inclusiveness of disaster relief, such as the involvement of people with disabilities in disaster risk management. The test of the questionnaires revealed some practical and methodological challenges for which the group discussed improvements. From the discussion results, revised versions of the questionnaires will be created by the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

At the meeting in Turin, technical partner Ubilabs also presented a revised version of the visualisation platform for the data that is going to be gathered. The new version allows for better comparison of regions and projects and offers several new options to plot different dimensions of the index in diagram form. A demo of the system is available here.

The next meeting of the project is scheduled for the end of August in Riga, Latvia.

More information on the project is available on the project website.

Ten teams of rescuers from all over Europe came together on the banks of Lake Neusiedl in the Austrian state of Burgenland from 25-28 May 2017 to exercise different emergency scenarios and to get to know their international colleagues and the way they work.

The Rescue Camp was organised for the first time on the initiative of and hosted by ASBÖ. ASB and WK co-organised the event.

The winning team of White Cross with the Rescue Camp travelling trophy.

The exercises had a competitive element, as jurors from all three co-organising organisations kept an eye on the performances of the teams while they were doing their work. The best teams in each scenario as well as the three best teams overall were called on stage at the winner’s ceremony in the end. The first placed team from White Cross (South Tyrol) took home the SAM.I. Rescue Camp travelling trophy, which they will have to defend the next time. The second and third places went to the second participating team from White Cross and the team from SFOP (Poland) respectively.

Local rescue organisations such as the Mörbisch fire fighters were also involved in the Rescue Camp.

Besides exercising rescue scenarios, the differences in rescue services in how rescue services are regulated in EU member states played a key role. The jurors overseeing the exercises documented these differences which ASBÖ will compile into a forthcoming overview report on the matter.

The informal exchange between the teams was also an important aspect of the event. Rescuers learned a lot about how their colleagues from neighbouring countries operate and how they can work together. In case of cross-border emergencies that require collaboration, this knowledge can be crucial. This was put to the test in the largest exercise scenario of the rescue camp, when rescuers from all six participating countries successfully bundled their resources and handled a large-scale emergency together.
The next SAM.I. Rescue Camp will take place in 2019. ASBÖ is going to reprise their role as host of the event.

The EC First Aid came together in Vienna on 28-29 July 2017, hosted by ASBÖ. Apart from bringing the guidelines of the Samaritan Contest up to date, they also put some final touches on the new SAM.I.-internal first aid certificate.

The Contest guidelines had last been revised in 2011, in preparation of the Contest in the following year. Since then, several aspects of the ERC guidelines, representing the current state of medical science in first aid, have changed, and with them first aid training. The revision, which is scheduled to be done in time for the Contest 2018, will also add some additional aspects not directly related to first aid, such as recommendations on a simpler and clearer points scheme for Contest tasks.

The SAM.I.-internal European First Aid Certificate, meant to facilitate recognition of certificates in Europe until an officially recognised solution is found, also received some final touches at the session. It will be published in the next months, after the interested partners have subscribed to applying the new version.

Vienna was also the last meeting of the EC First Aid in its current form, as the implementation of the SAM.I. strategy of 2016 plans to implement so called “competence centres”. The Competence Centre for First Aid will most likely be taking over all tasks of the EC First Aid and continue its work.

The SAM.I. GS will hold a workshop on EU funding from 11-12 October 2017 in Brussels. Employees or volunteers of the SAM.I. member organisations can participate free of charge.

The workshop will give an overview about EU funding programmes and will also introduce the focuses and the application processes of several programmes of particular relevance. The individual sessions will be held by General Secretariat Staff and various external speakers from other Brussels-based organisations and the EU.

Not only will participants be presented with an overview of funding opportunities – the gathering of participants with tasks in international coordination will also make the workshop a great networking opportunity for developing new project ideas with the colleagues from the other SAM.I. organisations.

Registration will be open until 31 August. More information is available here.

The advisory committee of SAMARITAN INTERNATIONAL (SAM.I.) met in the context of the Samaritan Forum in Riga to discuss the ongoing and future work of the network. The members decided to found working groups consisting of experts of the member organisation on different topics, so called „competence centres“.

Four competence centres will be founded, covering the areas of First Aid, Social Affairs, Civil Protection and Volunteer Management. They aggregate the know-how and expertise in the respective areas and will support the General Secretariat in this capacity. They will also be a permanent forum for exchange of knowledge and for activities specific to their respective subject matter.

The groups will be coordinated by member organisations with long-standing experience in the respective areas. The organisations who stepped forward to take on the coordination role for the first two years presented their work plan at the advisory committee meeting. They will coordinate the plans with all interested member organisations in the constituting sessions of the competence centres. These sessions are planned to take place over the remainder of the year.

Besides the competence centres, the advisory committee also agreed upon the budget for 2018 and approved a less complex system for determining membership fees.

On August 24, in the context of the Samaritan Forum 2017 in Riga, the SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. awards for international and local projects of the SAM.I. members were handed over.

Representatives of the winning international project “Cross-Border Samaritan Flood Preparedness”

The local award went to LSA, for their project „Old age does not equal loneliness“. This continuing initiative of the Latvian Samaritans focuses on organising events, excursions and other activities for elderly people.

SAM.I. president Fleckenstein hands over the local award

The international award was won by the project Cross-Border Samaritan Flood Preparedness. The project, which developed a low-threshold mechanism for neighbourly support in disasters, the largest joint disaster relief project to date, with eight participating Samaritan organisations: ANPAS, ASB, ASBÖ, ASCR, ASSR, SFOP, USB and WK. More information is available on the project website.

Handover of the second…

The second place of the international award went to ADAPT, an EU-co-financed project that worked on solutions to improve emergency evacuations for vulnerable people. ADAPT was conducted by SAM.I. members ANPAS, ASB, DPA and WK, together with the University of Rome Tor Vergata. The third place went to Zadruga, a project between ASBÖ and IDC. Zadruga developed solutions to help rural regions in Serbia recover economically after the most recent flood disaster.

…and third prize of the international award.

SAMARITAN’s B.E.S.T. is SAM.I.‘s awards to show appreciation to the best international and local projects from our network. The SAM.I. presidium and advisory committee decide on the winners among the nominated projects. The best local project and the three best international projects are honoured every two years, customarily in the context of the Samaritan Forum.

Check out our YouTube Channel for more impressions form this year’s winning projects.

Photos: Martins Zilgalvis

At the 9th Samaritan Forum, experts and stakeholders from all over Europe discussed current challenges and innovations in social services and social affairs.

Latvian Welfare Minister Jānis Reirs during his opening remarks

Maria João Rodrigues, MEP, introducing the audience to the EU’s upcoming pillar of social rights

From 24-25 August the 9th Samaritan Forum took place in Riga, Latvia, hosted by LSA. The focus topic was, for the first time in the event’s history, social services and social affairs.

SAM.I. Secretary General Ivo Bonamico remarked that the Forum was a great opportunity „to learn – from the speakers and experts as well as from each other. This has always been the idea behind the Samaritan Forum“

About 300 guests and speakers from a total of 16 European countries discussed the latest developments in social policy on the European, national and municipal level. They heard about technological innovations that will enable the elderly to live at home longer than ever before, without sacrificing safety and quality of care. They also listened to interesting approaches and new ways to making care in institutions, where it remains necessary, more comfortable for those who have to rely on it. The role of volunteering in social projects was also on the agenda, as were services for people with disabilities or children.

Audience at the Samaritan Forum 2017

An overall aspect of the Forum was the important role that NGOs play in social services in Europe today, a fact that was also aknowledged by Latvian Welfare Minister Jānis Reirs in his opening remarks.
 
 

Secretary General Ivo Bonamico during his closing remarks

Secretary General Bonamico: „NGOs want to join in answering the challenges of social and demographic change. And they are very much able to do so, as the conference contributions at the Samaritan Forum 2017 have vividly demonstrated.“

The next Samaritan Forum will be hosted by ASBÖ in 2019.

From 27-28 August, the EU co-financed project INDRIX met in Riga, Latvia. Together with invited stakeholders, they worked on a revised questionnaire for data acquisition in preparation of the creation of the final resilience index later this year.

After taking stock of the current state of development of the INDRIX map which is being developed by the project’s technical partner Ubilabs, the operative partners (ANPAS, LSA, WK) presented their last round of preliminary surveying. They had used the previous version of the questionnaire. These results made clear several ways to improve the questionnaires, which will be integrated into the final version by the project’s coordinator, the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Representatives of the stakeholders Auser  and FISH also took part in the discussions.

Besides the work on the index and accomanying tools and methods, the project group also consulted with local stakeholders about the civil protection system and measures to improve resilience in Latvia.

The INDRIX project will conclude its work with a meeting in Sicily in December, before the results will be presented at the final project conference in February.

More information on INDRIX is available on the project website.

In the run-up to Restart a Heart Day 2017, Samaritan organisations from eight countries conducted 18 public first aid awareness events and flash mobs all over Europe to raise awareness for the importance of first aid training – particularly among young people.

The series of events took place for the fourth time and, where possible, were not only held on the same day but simultaneously. Together, the SAM.I. member organisations wanted to raise awareness for the fact that everybody can learn some basic and potentially life-saving first aid measures, even children. Events were conducted by ANPAS, ASBÖ, ASSR, FSR, LSA, LSB, SFOP, and USB.

The simultaneous timing of the events in eight countries was chosen to demonstrate that increasing public safety through first aid training is not a national issue, but transcends borders. The SAM.I. organisations already vividly demonstrate this ideal by having their young volunteers take part in our biennial international youth competition in first aid, the Samaritan Contest.

In the SAM.I. working group on first aid, our experts are also taking steps to facilitate recognition of certificates across Europe. A network-internal European First Aid certificate is currently undergoing revision, and the group has also conducted advocacy measures to work towards an official recognition of certificates within the EU.

Picture: ASSR

From 11-12 October, the SAM.I. Brussels office held a workshop on EU funding opportunities for all interested member organisations.

The international group of participants from six different SAM.I. member organisations learned about the basics of several relevant funding programmes such as Erasmus+, Horizon 2020 or the programmes surrounding the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism from SAM.I. staff as well as from external speakers from the European Commission, the Representative Office of the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino as well as from KoWi, the umbrella office of German and research organisations in Brussels.

Besides the programme overviews, some specifics on application procedures, typical challenges and caveats when dealing with European funding programmes were discussed in detail. The participants also had the opportunity for a brief tour of the European quarter and the European Parliament to learn more about the workings of the European Union.

This workshop was the first educational course offered by the SAM.I. general secretariat. After an evaluation survey among the participants, the options for possible follow-up events will be considered.

International Samaritans at the anniversary celebation of LSA in Riga (Photo: LSA)

SAM.I. congratulates two member organisations on their 25th anniversary (LSA, Latvia and LSB, Lithuania) and one member organisation for their 10th anniversary (IDC, Serbia).

All organisations held annniversary celebrations with friends and volunteers of the associations but also with international guests from within and without the SAM.I. network.

At the anniversar celebrations of IDC (Photo: IDC)

“These comparably young member organisations have achieved impressive things since their founding days. They are providing numerous invaluable social services for their local populace and have also distinguished themselves in working groups and projects with their international partners from our network and beyond“ commented Ivo Bonamico, Secretary General of SAM.I. „We are proud to count them among our member organisations and wish them all the best for the future!“

The consortium of the project INDRIX (Inclusive Disaster Resilience Index) held its last workshop in Palermo from 14-16 December. They took stock of the work done in the previous two years and prepared the final result and recommendation document. The final document is planned to be presented in Brussels at the final conference of the project on 13-14 February.

The INDRIX project developed an index of social resilience, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups such as elderly people or people with disabilities. It uses statistical data but also data collected by questionnaire. It allows for regional or municipal assessment of resilience but also has a variant that enables civil protection projects to check if they are covering essential aspects of fostering resilience.

As the meeting coincided with an assembly of the ANPAS regional committee of Sicily, the INDRIX group also took the opportunity to discuss the project with the civil protection stakeholders that had come to Palermo for that meeting. This was a prime opportunity to work on an aspect of resilience that came up time and time again during the work of the project – inclusion of civil society and volunteering organisations, and consequently citizens, in prevention work.

The INDRIX project is coordinated by the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Partners are the Samaritan organisations ANPAS, LSA and WK. As a technical partner, Ubilabs is developing the project’s data collection and visualisation platform. Italian NGOs Auser and Fish have also made invaluable contributions to the project’s progress.

INDRIX is co-financed by the European Commission, Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection.

More information is available on the project’s website.

Season’s greetings to all our friends and partners across Europe and of course to all the volunteers and employees of our member organisations!

The team of the SAMARITAN INTERNATIONAL General Secretariat hopes you have a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year 2018!

Photo: Blue Blue Tree CC-BY-ND flickr user kiuko

Call in several relevant EU programmes have been published or will be published soon. For some programmes, SAM.I. organisations are already preparing an application.

Read all about it in our members only funding news.

If you don’t remember your access credentials, please contact the SAM.I. GS.