1.0     Preamble

Volunteers if properly managed provide a wide range of opportunities for enhancing and reinforcing the efficiency of existing disaster management system. Volunteers are necessary because the system and the career staff may be overwhelmed.

2.0     Type of Volunteers

Disaster volunteering can be divided into two.

1       Affiliated volunteers

Affiliated volunteers are volunteers that are attached to some bodies like the Red Cross Volunteers, Doctors without borders, Man or War etc.

2       Spontaneous or unaffiliated volunteers

Spontaneous or unaffiliated volunteers are individuals or groups that:

•      arrive unsolicited at the scene of a disaster

•      may or may not be a resident of the affected community

•      may or may not possess skills necessary to respond to the current disaster

•      are not associated with any part of the existing emergency management response system

3.0     Disaster Volunteerism

Refers to all volunteer activities performed during any phase of the emergency management cycle.

4.0     What can Volunteers Do?

Volunteers in disaster management can be helpful in the pursuit of all the phases of disaster management: prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

A.   Prevention/Mitigation - Measures aimed at impeding the occurrences of disasters and/or preventing such occurrences from having harmful effects on communities.

Disaster volunteers are potent tools for:

ü Awareness creation. Since they are closer to the communities, they pass on critical awareness information to the public.

ü House to house campaigns against disasters

B.      Preparedness - Measures which enable governments, communities and individuals to respond rapidly and effectively to disaster situations.

          Emergency volunteers can:

• ü Contribute in developing a Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA)

• ü Contribute in generating/activating Early Warning signs

C.      Emergency Response

          Emergency Volunteers can assist in

• ü Search & Rescue

• ü Evacuation

• ü Relief & Rehabilitation

5.0     NEMA Engineered Volunteers

a)       Grassroots Emergency Volunteers Corps (GEVC)

While disasters can strike wide region or a nation, the impact is felt at the community level although it may hit one or several communities at once. It is these communities that constitute what is referred to as “disaster fronts”. Being at the forefronts, communities need to have capacity to respond to threats themselves.

The GEVC was created to be the community disaster management mechanism with the required link to all jurisdictions (NEMA, SEMA and LGEMC). The outfit is also available for all categories of disaster (minor, major and catastrophic).

Mode

The programme is intended to be a collaborative one between the Federal, State and the Local Government. The tiers of government are to provide the necessary coordination and facilitation for the inauguration, training and sustenance of the programme.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will:

a)     In collaboration with the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) provide general coordination.

b)     Provide the resource persons.

c)     Provide training materials

d)    Kit the participants.

e)     Provide registration cards

f)      Provide relevant emergency hot lines

g)     Provide Certificates to the participants after the training programme

The State and the Local Government will:

a)     Carefully select the 200 participants

b)    Provide venue for the training

c)     Provide feeding to the participants

d)    Provide stipend for the participant

e)     Provide ID card for the Participant (Local Government)

SCOPE

The grassroots emergency corps members are expected to deploy their knowledge and skill during all the facets of disaster management from prevention/mitigation down to recovery phase. They are also expected to be involved at all levels of disaster-minor, major and catastrophic. They are thus to operate with all disaster management jurisdictions- federal, state and local government.

The Journey So far

GRASS-ROOT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CORPS (GEVC) DATA

NORTH WEST ZONE

S/NO	State	Local Government Area	Date	No of Volunteers
1	Kaduna	Zaria	2nd-4th June 2008	214
2	Katsina	Batagarawa	8th-10th July 2008	200
3	Sokoto	Sokoto South	5th-7th November 2008	200
4	Jigawa	Ringim	10th-12th December 2008	200
5	Kebbi	Birnin Kebbi	15th-17th December 2008	201
6	Kano	Nasarawa	25th-27th February 2009	199
S/Total				1,214

 

GRASS-ROOT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CORPS (GEVC) DATA

NORTH CENTRAL ZONE

S/N	State	Local Government Area	Date	No of Volunteers
1	Plateau	Wase	23 rd – 25th July, 08	300
2	Plateau	Kanke	15th – 17th Oct. 08	300
3	Kwara	Edu	21st – 23rd Oct. 08	200
4	Kogi	Ijumu	25th – 27th Nov. 08	200
5	Nassarawa	Doma	15th – 17 Dec. 08	200
6	Niger	Borgu	24th – 26th March, 09	200
S/Total				1,400

 

GRASS-ROOT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CORPS (GEVC) DATA

NORTH EAST ZONE

S/N	State	Local Government Area	Date	No of Volunteers
1	Borno	Biyu	16th-17th July 2008	200
2	Adamawa	Yola	30th-31st October 2008	210
S/Total				400

 

GRASS-ROOT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CORPS (GEVC) DATA

SOUTH WEST ZONE

 

S/N	State	Local Government Area	Date	No of Volunteers
1	Oyo	Ibadan North East	14th-16th July, 08	200
2	Ekiti	Ado-Ekiti	9th-11th Sept. 08	200
3	Osun	Uto-Ufin	9th-11th February 2009	200
4	Osun	Olu-Oluwa	7th-9th April 2009	200
5	Osun	Atokumosa	29th-1st July 2009	200
S/Total				1,000

 

 

GRASS-ROOT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CORPS (GEVC) DATA

SOUTH EAST ZONE

S/N	State	Local Government Area	Date	NO of Volunteers
1	Anambra	Awka South		200
2	Anambra	Ihiala		350
3	Anambra	Onitsha North		350
4	Ebonyi	Ikiro		165
5	Ebonyi	Izzi		210
6	Enugu	Udi		243
S/Total				1,518

 

GRASS-ROOT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CORPS (GEVC) DATA

 SOUTH SOUTH ZONE

S/N	State	Local Government Area	Date	No of Volunteers
1	Rivers	Oyingbo	11th -12th December 2008	115
2	Cross Rivers	Ikom	25th – 26th June 2009	61
S/Total				176

 

 

SUMMARY OF GRASSROOTS EMERGENCY VOLUNTEER CORPS (GEVC) IN THE ZONES

 

ZONE	NO OF STATE	NO OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT	NO OF VOLUNTEERS
NORTH WEST	6	6	1,214
SOUTH WEST	3	5	1,000
NORTH EAST	2	2	400
SOUTH EAST	3	6	1,518
NORTH CENTRAL	5	6	1,400
SOUTH SOUTH	2	2	176
TOTAL	21	27	5,718

 

GRASSROOTS EMERGENCY VOLUNTEERS IN THE STATES

 

b)      NYSC Emergency Management Vanguard

To further cement the link with the community NEMA/NYSC collaboration seeks to work together to recruits Corps Members to serve as volunteers for the management of disasters in the country.

The Journey So far

NYSC EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT VANGUARD DATA

North West Zone

Kaduna State	3rd -5th Sept 2008	Kachia	62
Kaduna State	15th -17th Jun 2009	Kachia	40 (Batch A)
Kaduna State	19th -22nd Aug 2009	Kachia	45 (Batch B)
S/Total			147

 

North Central Zone

Plateau State	2nd  -6th Sept 2008	Jos	40
Plateau State	15th -17th Jun 2009	Jos	42(Batch A)
Plateau  State	19th -22nd Aug 2009	Jos	41(Batch B)
S/Total			123

 

North East Zone

State	Date of Training/Inauguration	Local Gov’t Area	Number of Vanguard
Borno State	3rd -5th Sept 2008	Maiduguri	63
S/Total			63

 

South West Zone

Lagos State	3rd -5th Sept 2008	Lagos	70
Lagos State	15th -17th Jun 2009	Lagos	65(Batch A)
Lagos State	19th -22nd Aug 2009	Lagos	40 (Batch B)
S/Total			175

 

South South Zone

Rivers State	3rd -5th Sept 2008	Porthacourt	65 Batch B
Rivers  State	15th -17th Jun 2009	Porthacourt	88(Batch B)
S/Total			153

 

South East Zone

Enugu State	3rd -5th Sept 2008	Enugu	70
EnuguState	15th -17th Jun 2009	Enugu	70(Batch A)
EnuguState	19th -22nd Aug 2009	Enugu	45 (Batch B)
S/Total			185

 

FCT

FCT	3rd -5th Sept 2008	Abuja	124 (Batch B)
FCT		Abuja	(Batch C)
FCT	15th -17th Jun 2009	Abuja	(Batch A)
FCT	19th -22nd Aug 2009	Abuja	(Batch B)
S/Total

 

SUMMARY OF NEMA/NYSC EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT VANGUARD

ZONE	NUMBER
NORTH WEST	147
SOUTH WEST	175
SOUTH SOUTH	153
NORTH CENTRAL	123
SOUTH EAST	185
NORTH EAST	63
FCT	441
TOTAL	1287

 

c)       Executive Emergency Management Vanguardc

The Executive Emergency Management Vanguard launched on 17^th October 2009 in Abuja is the latest addition to disaster volunteerism in Nigeria. The Vanguard comprising of professionals (medical doctors, engineers, surveyors, geologist and top executives in the public and organized private sector of the economy) will be expected to provide added skill and knowledge needed to strengthen policies, strategies and actions to help the country prepare for, protect against, respond to recover from or mitigate against threatened or actual natural or man-made disasters.