Algeria: Leading by Example in Civil Protection

Within the series of seminars and workshops, part of the EUROMED PPRD SOUTH II program. Funded by the European Union, and after a previous stop in Beirut, we headed for the Algerian capital where the Civil Protection Communication Team was eagerly waiting to be part of this global endeavor to empower similar public bodies in Crisis Communication.

On a personal level, this was my first trip to Algiers, a place not to be missed. The city rich in history, architecture and cultural diversity is impressive to say the least. The welcome we received by our hosts was beyond compare, even in my home country Lebanon where we usually take pride in how we receive travelers and guests.
I am here inclined to start thanking people by name but that would simply mean I would be either leaving someone out or just having a blog post consisting mostly of names of fine people who put their lives daily on the line to save others, so I will just throw out a big thank you to everyone involved in making our stay a memorable one.

In terms of work done, the attendees came from various units within the Algerian Civil Protection located in different parts of the country. We were also graced by the presence of local public and private media institutions representatives.
I have always been a fan of having more varied profiles in workshops and courses I have facilitated over the years. This was definitely the case, as different backgrounds joined in to deliver more insights into our discussions, to allow a more comprehensive approach to hands-on exercises and to keep the conversation alive from different perspectives.

Our workshop which focuses on a 360 approach to communication in times of crisis, took off with the usual theoretical approach to the subject on day 1 followed by a custom conceived crisis scenario mimicking a potential incident that could happen in the country.
The hands-on approach lasted for the remaining 3 days tackling respectively communication with the written press, TV and Radio interviews and culminated in the digital and social media communication part where we discussed the various strategies and tactics alongside the tools that can be used.

Each phase of the work saw the attendees investing themselves fully in role playing and tackling the hard interview questions or the snappy tweets and comments in an extremely professional way.
If something stood out most from this workshop, it was the team spirit with which everyone was working. Boundaries between the media and the civil protection members dissolved quickly and they were each bringing their own expertise to the mix.

This has been one of the most fruitful workshops we have facilitated during the whole program. There is no greater reward for a facilitator than to see that the information is flowing in a productive way and seeing that one's recommendations are being followed.

Algeria, it has been both a pleasure and privilege to have met the brave people that go beyond the call of duty in protecting the public. Here's to continued success!

Next on our agenda is Jordan, where we will be conducting a workshop in Amman on the 18th of April.

I leave you with some photos I snapped from our day out in Algiers with the Civil Protection teams

An amazing day out in Algiers with the awesome members of the Algerian Civil Protection members, discovering the city and their impressive headquarters.

Posted by Patrick Chemali on Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Facebook takes a Page Out of a Lebanese Developer's Book

image source: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-check/

This morning Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg posted an update announcing "Safety Check", a new service that would allow people in times of natural disasters to inform their friends that they are safe or whether they need help.

Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

This is a big move by Facebook in terms of serving the public and a much welcome initiative.
In Lebanon, we have been spared the natural disaster scenarios for some time. Aside from the occasional highway flooding, and road blocked by snow, we have had a smooth ride for the past few decades in that area. Instead we prefer man-made disasters, and for those of you who have not heard of the on-and-off streaks of bomb attacks on various suburbs in the past  few...er...decades, that's something that we've adapted to over and over and again.

In recent years with the surge of yet another wave of bombs a young lady by the name of Sandra Hassan coded and published an Android app that with a click of a button would allow anyone to publish a quick message saying "I am Alive" on Facebook and Twitter. I recently had the opportunity of  highlighting the importance of such an app while speaking at an EU sponsored workshop in Cyprus for Civil Protection.

I am not sure we'll ever know if Facebook got inspired by this app, given the good number of Lebanese talents on board, or whether this is something that has been in the pipeline for some time but the similarity was worth highlighting.

So there you go,  my contribution to stroking the proverbial Lebanese ego and one more opportunity at gloating the usual "we did it first" and "do you see what Lebanese can do?".
Now you can bask in the sunshine of your self-satisfaction and wait for next earthquake to test out the new service or just read about it here: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-check/

Social Media To The Rescue For Civil Protection

Civil Protection or as we know it in Lebanon, Civil Defense, is a household name that often bring a sigh of relief for people involved in various incident or disasters; and we have had our share of those in Lebanon.

When recently approached by the organizers of the EUROMED PPRD SOUTH II PROGRAM to deliver a workshop on the effective use of social media for risk awareness and recovery I was thrilled by the opportunity to do something meaningful away from the usual freebie giveaways and brand mongering that seem to dominate the social media scene.

Set on day 2 of a two-day workshop in Cyprus, aimed at delivering added value and hands-on knowledge to select countries of the Mediterranean basin, my contribution was intended to bring the fine members of the individual civil protection societies up to speed with the latest trends and best practices for effectively managing their chosen social media channels.

Through a breakdown of the pros and cons of each channel, and its effectiveness in delivering proactive awareness messages versus its usefulness in immediate response to crisis, a real brainstorming session took place that helped shed valuable light on present practices and recalibrate the individual efforts of some countries.

The invaluable work done by "Donner Sang Compter" was featured as an example of how to do things right both on and off of social media, and the cynical yet effective application IAmAlive along with its tongue-in-cheek version for VIPs helped wrap up the session and define the influence of social media in our lives in times of crisis.

I was glad to see that the attendees took interest in the information received and voiced many of their concerns and interests in the Q&A session. [End of shameless self-promotion]

It is very exciting when age-old entities, that are often very traditional in their modus operandi, opening up to new work methodologies and striving to utilize the full potential of new tools such as social media channels. The Lebanese Civil Defense delegation assured me they were very interested in pushing their existing presence even further and fully embrace technological advances. I hope they won't have to go through too much red tape to do this.

I want to strongly thank Véronique Ruggirello and the organizers from the PPRD team and Civipol for their warm welcome and followup on every aspect of my trip and presentation and mostly for the insightful and fun time we spent in between working sessions.

You can find my presentation on Slideshare