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Eurosha

EUROSHA : a European initiative

EUROSHA is a pilot project within the [EU Aid Volunteers->http://ec.europa.eu/echo/euaidvolunteers/index_en.htm] framework, a European Commission initiative. It intends to promote the sharing of information that is needed in crisis situations.

It involves twenty or so different European Union member states : Italy, the Czech Republic, France, Slovenia, Hungary, Belgium, Poland and Bulgaria, as well as 8 volunteers from 4 pilot countries : Burundi, Chad, Kenya and the Central African Republic, trained in France in September 2012. They were then deployed in countries for a period of 6 months. Each team is made up of European volunteers and two local volunteers and is welcomed by a partner organisation in the host country.

The pilot countries were selected on the basis of what is required in the field in post-crisis situations according to ECHO’s managing director’s guidelines. Given the political situation, the Central African Republic’s volunteers were moved to Cameroon (not initially included in the programme).

Objectives

The project’s principal objective is to guarantee optimal information management in order to ensure the security of European citizens’ involvement and to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian aid in crisis situations. The project shows the value of adding European Union volunteers : provision of information, mutualisation of knowledge and strong collaboration between local and international actors.

The project has three specific objectives :

  • To ensure the selection of volunteers, their deployment and their training. 
  • To improve crisis management by collecting information, distributing it amongst the international community and mobilising the resources of local actors.
  • To strengthen local capabilities in order maintain and support an open-source information management environment.

Actors

Each European player invests in its field of expertise ; France Volontaires is the project coordinator :

  • implementation : [FOCSIV->http://www.focsiv.it/], France Volontaires, [Diaconie ECCB->http://hrp.diakonie.cz/eng/], Sloga
  • humanitarian aid training :[ Groupe URD->http://www.urd.org/], [FOCSIV->http://www.focsiv.it/], Sloga, [SCD->http://www.scd.asso.fr/], OpenStreetMap France
  • humanitarian project management : [ACRA->http://acra.it/], [People in Peril->http://www.clovekvohrozeni.sk/en/]
  • humanitarian aid evaluation : [URD Group->http://www.urd.org/]
  • mapping and information management : OpenStreetMap FranceSahana

Contact : [Lénaik Lepoul->mailto:[email protected]]