IF YESTERDAY had been a normal day, Vicki O’Donnell might have been surveying a sea bed as part of her work at UCC’s marine research centre.
Instead, she was trying to negotiate a checkpoint manned by hot-headed rebels carrying guns. At another checkpoint up the road, a man with a balaclava ran from armed forces before a shot rang out and he collapsed in the field.
This was not happening in some war-torn country. It was in the Curragh camp, where members of the Defence Forces were doing simulation exercises with 25 new recruits to the Rapid Response Corps. The corps is a roster of skilled civilians who can go to disaster zones at short notice and work as volunteers.
Yesterday’s training involved real-life security-related scenarios. The recruits were stopped at checkpoints and harassed by both government forces and rebel forces, in the fictional region of Ghanbatt. At one point, they found themselves lying face down as a man with a gun shouted in their faces. Roars were heard coming from a container behind them, and it sounded as though someone was being beaten.
The sheep dotted around the camp continued munching grass as the scenarios were played out, but a group of children returning from school looked slightly alarmed as two men wrestled a “rebel” to the ground.
“What we saw here today was a worst-case scenario,” said Ms O’Donnell. “A lot of people who would have gone away would never have seen things like this, so you have to go with an open mind and be prepared as best as you can.” Like the other recruits, she answered an advertisement earlier this year to join the corps. Now the geographical information systems researcher can be contacted by Irish Aid in the Department of Foreign Affairs at any time and asked to go to a disaster zone within 72 hours.
Before they are accepted in the corps, the recruits’ employers must sign a form showing that they understand the nature of the commitment and consent to it. Corps members work with Irish agencies such as Concern and Goal, and with UN partners such as Unicef and the World Food Programme. The corps was set up by Irish Aid after the Asian tsunami, when it was noted that thousands of volunteers arrived to help but some did not have the necessary experience or were not co-ordinated in their response.
“We learned from that terrible disaster that often what you need is far fewer people but people who are highly skilled and highly experienced,” said Minister for Overseas Development Peter Power.
He said people tended to think that only people with medical or humanitarian skills were needed in the aftermath of a disaster, but there was a big demand for volunteers in areas such as logistics, engineering and information management.
Mr Power said there had been considerable international interest in the plan. “I know from speaking to my colleagues in the development minister’s Council of Europe that a number of those countries are interested in the Irish experience, and I would have every reason to think that they would operate their own rapid response corps in years to come,” he said.
Business consultant Martin Dwan joined the corps in 2008 and has spent 10 of the last 12 months in Sri Lanka, working as a field officer with the UNHCR.
“The Rapid Response Corps is good for someone like me because my background and skills complement the kind of situations you encounter,” he said. “I could see how my contribution was adding to it.” Financially, the self-employed man said he was no worse off as he received an allowance to cover expenses.
Capt Tim O’Connor had served overseas in Liberia, Bosnia and Chad before he joined the corps. His first trip as a member of the Rapid Response Corps was to Haiti, where he was part of a technical team that assessed the immediate needs of the people after the earthquake. A week after he came home he was asked to go back and work as an engineer with the World Food Programme for two months. “It was tough, but it was very good because you could see what you were doing had an impact.”
