Non-Government Organisations are normally the first respondent to any humanitarian disaster to support the vulnerable communities on ground zero. The role of volunteers is very significant to support the relief and rehabilitation activities carried by such organisations.

With increased natural and man-made calamities, the need for professional volunteers has emerged manifold in the development sector.

Partners from South and West zones of Caritas India were trained on Volunteer Management to strengthen her volunteer base through partners to create lasting impacts in the communities.

EU Peach Volunteer Management workshop conducted by Caritas India on October 6-7, 2017 at Bengaluru brings together 22 participants from 12 partner organisations to prepare and manage the volunteers in their respective organizations starting from preparing the organization for volunteers to supervision and monitoring them.

The PEACH project, funded by EU and supported by Caritas Asia aims at creating 4400 aid volunteers from South East Asian disaster affected countries who will get the chance to become EU humanitarian aid volunteers.

Trained and well-prepared volunteers will be deployed as EU Aid Volunteers in humanitarian projects worldwide. The programme also provides networking platform to establish and facilitate interaction and partnership building, dissemination of information, the exchange of good practices during and after deployment.

It aims to bring together volunteers and organizations from different countries, providing practical support in the provision of humanitarian aid and contributing to the strengthening of local capacity and resilience of disaster-affected communities.

Mr. Anjan Bag, Thematic Manager – DRR set the tone of the training and briefed about the PEACH programme to build a volunteer base especially for humanitarian response. Dr. John Arockiaraj, Zonal Manager of South Zone presented the idea of a model village and how being proactive rather than being reactive to situations helps in reaching out to the marginalized especially during disasters.

All the partners committed to draft the Volunteer Manual for their respective dioceses apart from the number of volunteers they will create. They also committed to submit the action plan and share the same with Caritas India by October 21, 2017.