UAE's 'Community Readiness' programme to train one million responders for emergencies and disasters

Abu Dhabi: The Integrated National Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Programme (Jaheziya) has launched the unified and integrated national programme for community preparedness and response, "Community Readiness", with the aim of training and qualifying one million community responders from members of the public, volunteers, students, employees and community teams, enabling them to provide safe and organised initial response during the first critical minutes of emergencies, crises and disasters until the arrival of the competent authorities and frontline response teams.

The "Community Readiness" programme is based on an integrated national framework encompassing institutional readiness, community readiness and international readiness, in partnership with government, private, civil, military, healthcare, security, ambulance and community organisations, as well as public benefit institutions.

The programme is supported by a network of international scientific, training and accreditation partnerships with leading universities, training centres and professional institutions in the United States, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. These partnerships strengthen knowledge transfer, the localisation of specialised programmes, the qualification of national trainers and the implementation of unified standards that ensure training quality.

The programme comprises four progressive training levels. The first, Basic Readiness, includes risk awareness, personal safety, family emergency planning, requesting assistance, first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs), bleeding control, choking management, safe evacuation, fire safety, emergency kit preparation and psychological first aid.

The second level, Advanced Community Responder, focuses on incident command principles, incident scene management, primary triage, management of multiple casualties, evacuation and transportation, infection prevention and control, support for evacuation centres, crowd management, logistical support, information documentation and participation in field exercises.

The third level is dedicated to qualifying community leaders in team leadership, emergency planning, risk assessment, resource and volunteer management, decision-making, strategic communication, exercise design, report preparation and capturing lessons learned.

The fourth level is dedicated to preparing national trainers in teaching and training skills, simulation management, scenario development, trainee assessment, quality assurance, content standardisation and the development of national training programmes.

Dr. Adel Abdullah Al Shammari Al Ajmi, Chief Executive Officer of the Zayed Giving Initiative and Chairman of the UAE National "Jaheziya" Programmes, said that "Community Readiness" reinforces a comprehensive national culture based on prevention, preparedness, readiness, rapid response, business continuity and recovery, while transforming training and knowledge into community and institutional capabilities that can be activated whenever needed.

Professor Roberto Mugavero, President of the European Centre for Disaster Medicine, said the programme represents an innovative Emirati model that can benefit regional and international communities through its progressive training levels, digital platform, national responder database, training quality assurance system and readiness assessment framework, while ensuring that trainees do not exceed the limits of their competencies or replace licensed and qualified professionals.