About ProVoice
The three focus countries, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine have a common history as being part of the USSR and hence under a communist regime for many years. Historically, Civil Protection in these countries has been solely state managed, having implications on the development of civil society organizations (CSOs) as well as on the involvement of the society itself.
Until now there is limited citizens’ participation and representation in CSOs, limited awareness among the population on civil protection and a slowly evolving culture of volunteering within civil protection.
Likewise, the concept of spontaneous and non-affiliated volunteers has only come up in recent years and needs structural support.
Against this background, the general objective of this project is to contribute to strengthening the cooperation between neighbourhood countries and UCPM countries in the field of volunteer management, spontaneous volunteers and population awareness in disaster preparedness.
The main specific objectives will be:
a) to enhance volunteer management procedures and strengthen the capacities of volunteer leaders and Emergency Response Teams in the three focus countries;
b) to develop organisational and policy level guidelines for organising spontaneous and non-affiliated volunteers and
c) to use existing tools developed in UCPM countries to raise awareness among the population. 10 to 15 volunteer Emergency Response Team leaders in each focus country will be trained in volunteer management and 9-15 Emergency Response Teams in all will be established and/or supported through equipment and training.
For each focus country policy level and organisational guidelines for spontaneous volunteering will be developed.
One community-based exercises in each country with at least 60 participants each will be carried out to raise awareness for disaster preparedness among the population (180 over all countries).
