The word ‘volunteer’ is associated with positive vibes and a dose of admiration for people who act selflessly and without sparing any thought for financial profit.
Think about it. When a water pipe bursts, you don’t call a volunteer plumber and when your car breaks down, your mechanic will not carry out the necessary repairs out of complimentary kindness.
Your children are not taught by volunteer teachers and when planning your holiday, you don’t book a hotel which will offer you lodging and meals at no cost.
But if your house is on fire, or you somehow find yourself stranded in a remote area after a picnic gone wrong, chances are that the men and women who come to your rescue will be just that: volunteers.
Nothing will truly compensate for the hours these volunteers spend in training for different and difficult scenarios. A fire and rescue volunteer will come to your rescue not for personal and monetary gain but to help the community.
The Emergency Fire and Rescue Unit (EFRU) is entirely run by volunteers who sacrifice their free time to continue giving a service to the country.
In case of emergency
The Emergency Fire & Rescue Unit (EFRU) is a non-governmental and non-profit rescue organisation run entirely by volunteers.
The unit was founded in June 2006 and is committed to sustain a team of fully-trained rescuers.
“EFRU’s primary objective is to provide emergency rescue services as back-up to the Civil Protection Department in case of national catastrophes such as earthquakes, major disasters, floods and similar occurrences.
“The unit’s members specialise in basic and advanced rescue including cliff rescue, high angle rescue, basic and advancedfirefighting, urban search and rescue and first aid.
“The team is also equipped to offer its services to commercial and other charitable organisations who may request its assistance from time to time. The EFRU also assists other entities through the community assistance programme,” says Keith Borg, public relations manager.
In past years, the unit has worked relentlessly to build a strong team, capable of assisting the local Civil Protection Department in many different ways.
“Motivating volunteers is always challenging but the EFRU is never short of motivating rescue volunteers, although self-motivation takes them the extra mile... literally, due to the numerous rescue training and intercultural experiences abroad,” says EFRU director Ivan Barbara.
It is the unit’s aim to keep on providing a firm shoulder locally, and consolidate further the assistance that it offers abroad, through EVOLSAR, the European Association of Civil Protection Volunteer Teams.
“When the EFRU, back in 2009, discovered the benefit of networking and sharing of ideas among different volunteer teams coming from other countries, it was driven towards the notion of setting up a European network of volunteer rescue teams.
“This drive was set in motion in 2011 after the EFRU twinned up with the Italian team Edelweiss. In May 2014, together with another four teams from Italy, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, EVOLSAR was set up.
“A year later, a team from the UK also joined, and last April, a Hungarian team was added to the ranks. Other teams from Austria and Spain, and second teams from Greece, Italy, Portugal and the UK are presently undergoing review to join the association in the near future,” says Borg.
The scope of this association is to standardise operations and training, thus enhancing cooperation between the member teams to facilitate joint deployments.
This set-up is aimed to minimise drastically the bureaucratic procedures of deployment, whereas member teams can deploy to assist other member teams in catastrophe stricken areas without waiting for bureaucratic procedures of assistance requests to be issued.
It will also facilitate deployment since a small group from each team can be deployed to augment the rescue team in the stricken country without depleting the home workforce. This improves response time and thus enhances the possibility of saving lives in the first few days after the catastrophe. It may also serve as a rapid response solution for humanitarian aid to reach affected areas quicker.
Recently, with the invaluable help of MEUSAC and EUPA, the EFRU has managed to secure €156,000 in EU funds, acting as a project leader, in order to implement a pan-European Erasmus+ project entitled Synergising European Volunteer Rescue Teams – A Rescue Operations Manual.
This project will have the following teams participating as partner organisations: Elite Special Task Force of Greece (EP.OM.E.A.), Escola Portuguesa de Salvamento (EPS Team Portugal), Edelweiss (Italy), the Cyprus Civil Protection Volunteer Team (CCPVC of Cyprus) and Serve On (UK) while the EFRU is heading this initiative.
These teams are working together to form a training manual, compiling the basic elements of principal rescue techniques to provide a standard introduction in rescue to all volunteers venturing into this challenging and rewarding activity.
The purpose of the manual is to have one principal consolidated reference book featuring tried and tested principles and best practices of rescue to serve as a benchmark for volunteer rescue teams.
