Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Emergency Management expertise is being deployed in some of the world’s most dangerous hotspots.

 

CSU’s Master of Emergency Management student Dana Banke is developing Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Management Programs for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), in the Occupied Territories of West Bank and Gaza, and Magen David Adom (MDA) in Israel.

 

His fellow classmate Mark Kelley is in Sudan overseeing the United Nations World Food Programme for the more than two million people who desperately need food and shelter as a result of the war in Darfur.

 

Ian Manock is a lecturer in emergency management at Charles Sturt University with responsibility for coordinating subjects in CSU’s undergraduate emergency management program.

 

He is also the coordinator of the Australian Emergency Management Forum, an Internet based emergency management forum maintained by CSU. He says emergency management now encompasses security and counter terrorism.

 

“We used to think of emergency and disaster management as dealing with floods and cyclones and bushfires. But that has changed. Our Emergency Management post graduate degree is project based and we get the students to examine and analyse an area of emergency or risk management and look at enhancing that area of practice.

 

“So, Dana was able to link his work in Israel and Palestine with his studies. He has looked at how to reduce the risks being faced by relief organisations given that the Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law, which are intended to provide protection to those carrying out humanitarian duties in time of conflict, are not respected by combatants in these security areas.”

 

Dana says he chose to work in such a challenging environment because he “respected” the work being done by the PRCS and the MDA. Still, his work and studies are “constantly being impacted by the huge security presence,” according to Mr Manock.

“Working in a high security environment, with restrictions on postal service, has required that his studies and submission of assignments be done via email”

 

 “In conducting the research for his studies, Dana designed a questionnaire for the NGOs who are involved in providing relief in that area. Collecting the completed questionnaires proved to be very difficult because of travel restrictions and border crossings.

 

“A couple of days before he submitted his last assignment, people he worked with were involved in the bombings that occurred when the Red Cross were being targeted by the militants, rather than their usual problem of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Mr Manock.

 

Dana says despite these challenges, “The research that was required has definitely been beneficial to expanding my knowledge base and making me better able to adapt to the ever changing environment I work in”.

 

Both Dana Banke and Mark Kelley have finished their Masters degrees and will graduate in 2008.