ADRA Regional Emergency Response Team Training
2 December, 2024
From 25-28 November 2025, 35 ADRA personnel from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu gathered at Avondale University for a South Pacific Division Emergency Response Team (ERT) training workshop. The training helps to equip ADRA’s first responders in times of disaster.

The group of participants and facilitators
“We try to have these kinds of trainings before a disaster so that emergency management teams are prepared with the basic tools and the decision-making processes they need to have to better respond to emergencies,” says Eric Leichner, Emergency Management Director for ADRA Australia.

Eric presenting to participants
During the week, the participants were trained in the systems and structures activated in emergencies, budgeting in disasters, activating and engaging with volunteers, psychosocial first aid, and how to work with affected communities to identify the most appropriate response.

Participants learning about the Emergency Response Management System (ERMS)
Across its more than 120 offices, the global ADRA Network uses the same Emergency Response Management System (ERMS) to activate a response, regardless of the scale of the emergency. The week-long training focused on equipping the responders on the ground, the ERT, and demonstrating how their role relates to the broader system.
“It’s eye opening for us, the coordination and all the roles and responsibilities for the ERT,” says Rico Kalmelu Aka, Project Manager – Emergency Management for ADRA Vanuatu. “There’s lots of things that we’ve learned during the week that will help us in emergency response.”

Interactive training activity
Attendees ranged from one who had spent just one week in their role with ADRA, to those who have been with ADRA for decades. Sonya Timano, the National Emergency Coordinator from ADRA Papua New Guinea, has responded to several disasters with ADRA, including the recent landslide. While her knowledge is immense, she saw an opportunity to learn and grow through the ERT training, as well as to share some of her learnings with others.
“I want to continue to learn more because there were some gaps that I saw that I could fill through this training,” she says. “It’s exciting to learn with others, and then seeing how my experience can help others while I learn from them too.”

The week finished with a tabletop exercise
Maloni Siga, Project Officer for ADRA Fiji, echoed this saying, “The biggest takeaway was just being in the room with experts from different countries and then learning from their shared experiences.”
The week concluded with a full day tabletop exercise with a simulated disaster. The exercise was an opportunity for participants to put into practice the skills and knowledge they had gleaned.