Stories and reports

How do we manage eventual crises?!
"Crisis management handling"

05-08 September, 2001

In the period from September 05 to September 08, this year, A "Crisis Management" training was held in Skopje, which was conducted in cooperation with Church World Service and the Macedonian center for international cooperation. The training was for representatives from local NGOs that work on conducting crises related activities.

The program comprised two parts - crisis management (risks and catastrophes, preparations for catastrophes, response to catastrophes and amelioration of the catastrophes' effects) and the second part of managing the project cycle (making projects, reports, observation and evaluation).

Comments were given by the participants themselves during the training about the new knowledge they acquired. The most frequent comments heard were "your knowledge was enough for me to learn much; all lectures and discussions were good; they helped me acquire new knowledge from this area; you have made me think better and more regarding catastrophe and risk management; excellent materials".

I joined the work of Megasi a year ago as a coordinator-volunteer. I had the job of organizing matters in the refugee camp Radusha. It was a matter of psychosocial help for the children. This was my first experience with, a sort of, crisis management. I spend the crisis in Macedonia with similar activities. I help the temporarily displaced persons, i.e. children, which are situated in families. I help take them of from the stress of the war. I will transfer the acquired knowledge from the training on my colleagues from my organization. Megasi has the intention of engaging an additional number of volunteers I this experience is sure to do good for them" stated Alexander Peshev, from Megasi, during the training and regarding the experience acquired.

The statement of Vegim Etemi from El Hilal was similar: "I have been with El Hilal ever since the beginning of the Kosovo crises. I took care of the Kosovo fugitives; I recorded them on the Blace border crossing, where the situation was most critical. After a while I started working on projects. This is something new for me. I we had this before the commencement of the crisis in Macedonia we would have surely known how to work better since the beginning itself. My new experience is also new experience for all the people from El Hilal", Vegim told us in the course of the training.

Maja Dilberova from the Association of the organizations of women in Macedonia participated in this training on an invitation by MCIC. She has not had accident-related activities so far. "This is the first time I am in such training. It is nice to know how to handle accidents. This is a restless region and the Association of organizations of women in Macedonia is now richer for an experience of the crisis management theory, which was provided for me by MCIC and the excellent trainers", Maja points out.

Participants of the training were NGO representatives represented in the local NGO humanitarian coordination: The first children's embassy in the world Megasi; the Association of the organizations of women in Macedonia; El Hilal; the Organizations of women Skopje; the Organization of the organizations in Macedonia; The Romany organization of the women in Macedonia "Daja"; the Ecological association "Natira"; Macedonia Red Cross and MCIC.
Two representatives from the American Church World Service were trainers.

Back to News