Community Participation in Emergency Response
A primary responsibility of the humanitarian aid community is to construct or rehabilitate basic infrastructures essential to access, shelter, and the provision of life sustaining services in the most critical of circumstances. This work often has to be carried out on an emergency basis in far from ideal circumstances. This course will provide advanced knowledge on community structures, resources and skills, as well as participatory models of intervention; and the technical requirements for the infrastructure needed in humanitarian emergencies. Students will be exposed to vital managerial decisions they must consider as they supervise teams of technical experts. Following the implementation of immediate infrastructural needs, the responsibility of humanitarian fieldworkers remains to provide a range of basic services until such a time as either (1) the service is no longer required, (2) the population has returned to its place of origin, or (3) the governmental agencies have the means and manpower to provide such services.
Designed to be flexible enough to accommodate humanitarian aid professionals working in the field, while also remaining academically rigorous, the Community Participation in Emergency Response course is a 6-day intensive course worth 2 graduate-level academic credits. It is a required course in the Masters of International Humanitarian Action (MIHA), Module 2, or can be taken as a stand-alone program.
