The Emergency Fire and Rescue Unit (Malta) is this weekend hosting a two-day activity which will see over 120 rescue volunteers from all over Europe, the US, Serbia and Russia, training together with one aim – that of saving lives.

This project is funded by Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnerships funding strand and is led by EFRU, a 40-strong rescue team that was set up locally but is managing to unite rescue volunteers from around Europe and beyond.

Participating teams include Edelweiss (Italy), EPS (Portugal), ETSM (aka EP.OM.E.A., Greece), CCPVC (Cyprus) and Serve On (UK), as well as other volunteer rescue teams from Hungary, Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, France, Serbia, Russia, Austria and Germany.

This project has been ongoing for the past two years – its key intellectual output is a volunteer’s rescue manual as a basic standard for the principal rescue techniques for volunteers in the field of civil protection to attain interoperability among the teams.

Tomorrow afternoon EFRU will be organising another event at Ġnien il-Kunsill tal-Ewropa, Gżira where the team will be joined by all its foreign counterparts forming part of this association. The aim of this event is to celebrate volunteers and show members of the public and VIPs that have been invited, the purpose behind the work that the EFRU is doing.

The afternoon activity is funded by the Small Initiatives Support Scheme as managed by the Malta Council for the Volunteer Sector and is supported by the Gżira local council, Vibe FM, Elmo Insurance, Firetech Ltd, OK Medical and Petzl Malta.

On Saturday, the rescue manual, which has been developed by this network of volunteers led by the EFRU, will be officially launched during a full-day conference, entitled The Volunteer Rescuer – A Unified Approach, at Fort St Angelo in Vittoriosa.

Apart from the rescue manual, a number of keynote speeches will cover various subjects of interest, including the role of the volunteer in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, psychological aspects in rescue volunteering, teamwork, interoperability, harmonisation and standardisation of techniques.

The Emergency Fire and Rescue Unit (Malta) taking part in Synergising European Volunteer Rescue Teams, a project funded under the Erasmus programme. PHOTO: LinkedIn

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