“Resilience” and “whole-of-society” have been talked about a lot.
This past Saturday, nearly 300 volunteers from across society came together, braving the heat and rain, to put these concepts into action at Dingxi Elementary School.
In addition to Team FA civilian responders – who on average went through 80-plus hours training – we were joined by firefighters, paramedics, the Taipei Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), pastors from the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, friends from the Eden Social Welfare Foundation, and over a hundred volunteer role players.
Forward Alliance and our strategic partners – Spirit of America, Kaohsiung Medical University Memorial Hospital, and the Taiwan Society of Paramedicine – also welcomed Vice President Bikhim Hsiao to observe our exercise. Needless to say, it meant a lot to everyone to see our efforts recognized by the highest levels of government. For Taiwan to be truly resilient, public agencies and civil society must find a way to work together.
And it was particularly heartwarming to have AIT Director Raymond Greene with us too. FA’s very first public workshop in 2020 was held in partnership with AIT, when Director Greene was Deputy Director. We were happy to share with him that in the time since, Forward Alliance has put approximately twenty thousand citizens through our various levels of training!
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the “921” Chi-Chi Earthquake, which took more than two thousand lives and injured over ten thousand more. We know from first hand experience that when disaster strikes, professionals, first responders and volunteers all must work together, and every community must be trained and equipped to mobilize and look after themselves.
This is why our exercise was designed to force medical personnel, firefighters, civilian volunteers, and local NGOs to work hand in hand to respond to a mass casualty event, to conduct search and rescue, and to stand up and operate a shelter – all with limited resources.
Everyone came away with lessons learned, and how we might do things differently. We will come back next time, involve more civil society organizations, and do it better. We believe this is the way to “practice resilience.” So proud of our volunteers and partners!
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