To ensure that countries in Europe are better prepared to face future emergencies, WHO/Europe’s risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) team, together with the WHO European Centre for Preparedness for Humanitarian and Health Emergencies in Istanbul, Türkiye, organized a 5-day capacity-building programme that comprised the RCCE School and an immersive, full-scale simulation exercise (SimEx).
Emergency communication planning
The event brought together 45 communication specialists from regional ministries of health, the Turkish Red Crescent and WHO country offices. WHO/Europe provided subject specialists in areas such as media, risk communication, infodemic management and community engagement to guide participants through the 10 steps needed to create an emergency communication plan.
To facilitate planning, participants were introduced to the new RCCE capacity-building platform, due to be fully released in the coming months. The platform has interactive tools and a rich library of supporting material that can be used to create both strategic and tactical emergency communication plans. Important training components include identifying stakeholders, creating key messages, and monitoring and evaluating emergency plans.
Michail Okoliyski from the WHO Country Office in Bulgaria shares, “Over the 5 days, we learned a lot about the strategic development of risk communication plans under the leadership of experienced supervisors. I enjoyed the human and professional cohesion in our team and I am proud of our joint efforts to create targeted messages with journalists, representatives of local and religious communities, and local authorities.”
A full-scale emergency simulation
After participants had completed their training-room activities, a full-scale SimEx began. To put their learning into practice and apply new skills, they were transported to a fictional city in the grip of a fast-moving emergency.
Complete with a market square, religious building and media zone, and peopled by actors playing concerned, and in some cases angry, citizens, religious leaders and interrogative journalists, the fictional world of the SimEx (hosted at an event venue in Istanbul) became home for 2 days. Participants even slept out in tents to recreate the challenges of functioning during a real emergency.
This demanding world was created to test participants’ knowledge of emergency risk communication procedures, as well as their flexibility, personal communication skills and cultural sensitivity.
“It was a wonderful experience for me. I usually attend this kind of training and get the theoretical background, but never had the chance to implement it in the field right away,” says Mahir Boydak, an RCCE School participant from the Turkish Red Crescent.
Right after returning from the RCCE School, one of the participants, Nadja Cirar, Deputy Head of the Communication Centre at the National Institute of Public Health in Slovenia, faced a real public health crisis – the threat of waterborne disease in the eastern part of her country. Thanks to the SimEx, her team was able to respond using the skill and procedures they had practised all week. An epidemic was averted and the situation is now under control.
The RCCE School and SimEx complement WHO/Europe’s recently published “Risk communication and community engagement: a compendium of case studies in times of COVID-19”, and the soon-to-be-released RCCE capacity-building platform. Together they aim to ensure that lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic contribute to a WHO European Region better prepared to face emergencies.