NGO safety and security training (3 days)

How to deal with corruption during your stay aboard? What if you encounter a medical issue in a remote area? How to keep your tension under control when being mugged? What is your strategy when being abducted? This – and more – you will learn during the NGO safety and security training.

For whom: For employees of NGOs travelling in urban and remote areas. The training is suitable both for people who go on short trips, and people who remain abroad for longer periods of time.

Duration of the training: 3 days, including overnight stay

Objective of the training: The goal of this training is to increase your personal safety during travel. After the training, you will be more aware of risks, know better how to avoid them, and you will have learned to deal with high-risk situations in remote areas.

Content of the training:

• Risk analysis and travel preparation: You learn to make a risk analysis of the travel destination. How do you align your behaviour with the local customs and situation? Which preparations do you need to make?
• Preparing a context analysis of your work area: Here we will focus on the local context of your area of work and learn to assess the specific risks of your stay. Together, we analyze where the mission of your organization and the local situation may conflict. How will the local population respond when, for instance, you work for a Christian organization in a predominantly Islamic area?
• Dealing with low levels of aggression and crime: You’ll learn how to deal with common ‘low levels’ of aggression and crime. For example what to do with a pushy taxi driver, a beggar or a tenacious street vendor. In the training, you learn where your boundaries are and how to make those boundaries clear, without aggravating the situation.
• Dealing with high levels of aggression and crime: Here we teach you to deal with high aggression levels and with violence. For example, armed robbery and unexpected checkpoints. You learn to turn high-risk situations into less risky ones, and how to de-escalate.
• Dealing with medical emergencies: In the areas where you travel, doctors and hospitals are scarce and the quality of medical care is lacking. What to do when you need to apply urgent medical care? For example after a car accident or injuries caused by violence? You learn to stabilize injuries and stop bleeding according to a standard medical protocol.
• The risks of ammunition, mines and weapons: You will learn to recognize the risks and dangers of firearms, ammunition and land mines. After the training, you will be able to recognize formal and informal warning signs. You will know what to do when encountering a mine. And know what is safe behaviour around firearms. You will also be able to deal with protective materials.
• Module Resilience and Gender: In this module, we will focus on gender-specific risks that men and women encounter during their travels. How do you prepare yourself? What are your boundaries and how do you make sure they will be respected by others?
• Dealing with hostage situations: Imagine you are being held hostage during a shorter or longer period of time. How do you behave? You will learn about the various motives of hostage-takers and strategies to cope with the situation in the best way possible.

Day 1 from 09am till 09pm
Day 2 from 09am till 09pm
Day 3 from 09am till 05pm