About VolFiRe
The project VolFiRe (Institutionalising a Volunteer First Responder Service in Armenia) is funded by the Austrian Development Cooperation and implemented in 12 communities and 10 regions (Marz) of Armenia: Areni, Ashotsk, Baghramyan, Champbarak, Garni, Kapan, Noyemberan, Spitak, Talin, Tumanyan, Vayk, Vedi.
Context:
The Civil Protection system in Armenia is currently mainly based on professional responders from governmental institutions. They are to a large extent on-duty firefighters and other paid staff of the Rescue Services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). The national budget for Civil Protection is limited. The combination of these two factors, a costly system based on paid staff only and limited governmental funding, means that the Ministry of Emergency Situations has limited capacities for responding to local emergencies and even less, to large disasters on the whole territory of Armenia.
To cope with this situation, the Rescue Services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Armenia (MIA) developed a long term strategy to develop civil protection volunteering in Armenia.
In 2020/2022, in the frame of the StrengthVol project funded by DG-ECHO and co-funded by ADC, the Rescue Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Armenia (MIA), the Armenian Red Cross Society (ARCS) and the Austrian Red Cross (AutRC) developed a comprehensive model for Civil Protection volunteering for Armenia.
In this model, the volunteers are first responders, firefighters and rescuers called “Volunteer Fire Rescue Groups” (VFRGs). Volunteers are affiliated to the Armenian Red Cross Society and pass an exam with the MIA Rescue Services (RS). Successful candidates receive an official rescuer ID from RS.
The VFRGs are alerted and deployed by the RS Crisis Management Centre (911) for any emergency or disaster occurring within their municipality. They are available 24/7 and should deploy within 15 minutes after the alert. The groups themselves are responsible for running a VFR station, maintaining equipment and a fire truck.
They also organise their own trainings and regular activities with support of partners at the local level, e.g municipalities, local Rescue Service Fire Brigades and ARCS local branches.
Partners:
The project is implemented with the following partners:
© Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved.