How to be helpful during a crisis
There are several ways in which you can help during a crisis. Ideally, you should have reviewed your own preparedness for dealing with crises before the crisis actually occurs. Then you will also be able to help others.
Review your own preparedness
To help out in a crisis, you can start by reviewing your own preparedness. Make a plan for how you will handle your own and your loved ones’ needs for water, heating, food and information. Make sure you have a small extra supply of the medicines you need and perhaps several ways to pay for any goods you need to buy.
Read more about home preparedness
Prepare together with your neighbours
If you know your neighbours, you’re more likely to be able to handle a crisis effectively.
Tips to get started
- Check if there’s any interest in discussing preparedness with your neighbours, your landlord or within your housing association.
- Review shared resources and spaces, and discuss how they can be used. Could you set up a shared crisis supply storage, and what should it contain?
- Could you set up a meeting room where there’s always a battery-powered radio?
- Review your communication channels. A chat group or Facebook group for the neighbourhood could be a start, as could paper lists of telephone numbers – which, of course, should be voluntary to participate in.
- Draw up a plan for how you can cope in a situation without access to electricity, water or heating. Practise cooking together on a barbecue in the courtyard or similar.
- Think about which of you who might need extra help in a crisis.
Join a voluntary organisation
In the event of sudden crises, the most important work is often carried out by voluntary organisations that collaborate with the authorities. Join a voluntary organisation, for example a civil defence organisation.
Or contact your municipal to find out which organisations they work with in a crisis. You can also raise the issue of crisis preparedness within any organisation you are a member of. How can your sports club or housing association help in a crisis?
Become a civilian emergency responder
A civilian emergency responder is a volunteer who can quickly arrive at the scene of an accident or crisis to provide assistance in the event of fires, cardiac arrests and traffic accidents. The service is a collaboration between the Emergency Services, the Fire Protection Association and SOS Alarm.
To become a civilian emergency responder, you need to take a course where you will learn how to extinguish fires, act in the event of accidents and how to provide first aid.
Learn more about crises
The more you know about crises and how to protect yourself against them, the better decisions you can make when a crisis arises. And you can help others too. Find out more via the links below!