"In order to reduce the time of response in case of fires or other incidents and therefore decrease the number of people dying or being injured, many European countries depend on volunteer fire brigades. They are of particular importance in rural areas, but especially there the number of people willing to join volunteer fire brigades is unfortunately decreasing. Some countries like Germany have a longstanding tradition in volunteer fire brigades. In other countries like Bulgaria, volunteer fire brigades gained more importance in recent years. In addition, the organization of volunteer fire brigades is very different in each country. Therefore, the aim of the ""FireVall"" project was to exchange good practices among volunteer fire brigades across Europe focused on recruitment strategies in the different countries as well as on the organization and financing of volunteer fire brigades.The partners learned a lot from each other and their experiences enhancing the effectiveness and quality of the work carried out. The partnership was composed of 7 partners from 6 countries, who have extensive knowledge on the training of volunteer fire fighters and the organisation and funding of volunteer fire brigades in their country. The applicant Gemeinde Kabelsketal has 6 local volunteer fire brigades in their territory and has been be supported by the second German partner Wisamar. The Danish and Croatian partners represent fire brigades with volunteer fire fighters and the Estonian partner is a volunteer fire brigade itself. The Hungarian and the Bulgarian partners are organisations supporting the regional development and cooperating very closely with the municipalities and their volunteer fire brigades.During the lifetime of the project, the partnership met 5 times. Each transnational meeting had a different central theme based on one of the following relevant questions:- What is the public perception and the importance of volunteer fire brigades in the partner countries?- What are the legal regulations regarding volunteer fire brigades in the partner countries?- How do volunteer fire brigades acquire new/ enough members, motivate and maintain them?- How are volunteer fire brigades organized and financed?- What is the educational framework/ training/ qualification behind volunteer fire brigades?As a result, good practices answering the aforementioned questions have be collected and shared with the local teams of volunteer firefighters in order to evaluate them regarding their usability and adaptability within the local contexts. Considering this feedback, the good practices were summarized and translated into the partner languages (DE, BG, DK, HU, CRO and EE). To make these results accessible for a wider public, they are published on the project website, where they remain free to use also after the end of the project. During the meetings, the partners also had the chance to get more insight into the system of volunteer fire brigades within the country where the respective meeting took place. In this way, they were able to exchange, discuss and compare the local circumstances with their colleagues on site as well as with local stakeholders and policy makers.At local, regional, national and European level, the project addressed volunteer fire brigades and their members, since they can profit directly from the project results. They are able to adapt the collected good practices in order to sustain and improve the activities and services in their countries. Hence, the volunteer fire brigades can increase the number of volunteer firefighters and improve the organisation of regular activities, training, information, monitoring, operational response and fire precaution measures. The secondary target group of the project was the general public, who has been made more aware of the importance of volunteer fire brigades and their need to be supported by the local communities mainly through the diverse dissemination activities. An important target group for dissemination were also policy and decision makers who are involved in the regulations and financing of volunteer fire brigades. They can adapt the collected good practices can be adapted in order to find starting points for a (more) effective support and funding of volunteer fire brigades in their region. The lessons learned and the contacts made during the project already triggered new ideas for cooperation between volunteer fire brigades."

"According to the European health and social integration survey (EHSIS), in 2012 there were more than 70 million people with disabilities in the EU-27, equivalent to 17.6 % of the population.The EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights prohibits discrimination on the ground of disability. The rights of persons with disabilities in the EU are also protected by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), accepted by the EU in 2010. Article 11 of the CRPD refers to the safety and protection of persons with disabilities in conflict and emergency situations. To enforce this, it is indispensable that firefighters are trained on how to address the special needs of individuals with disabilities during emergency situations. Unfortunately, nothing further from the truth. Training on how to address the special needs of individuals with disabilities during emergency situations is not included in the firefighters initial training. In this context, in order to respond to the identified training needs of firefighters across the EU, the objective of the project is to develop the first open and multilingual e-learning platform for firefighters on emergency planning and response when involving individuals with disabilities. The e-learning platform will be accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones. The platform will be available in 5 languages (English, Danish, Spanish, Finnish and Slovenian) and it will contain four modules:Module 1: Autism Spectrum Disorder.Module 2: Visual and Hearing impairment.Module 3: Physical impairment.Module 4: Mental impairment.Each module will include an online training course for firefighters on emergency planning and response when involving individuals with that type of disability, a tool to assess the learning outcomes from the online training course and produce a certificate for firefighters to add to their Europass documents, and a toolkit (set of tools, procedures, and supporting materials) for effective emergency planning and response. In order to assess how effective is the e-learning platform in improving firefighters’ competences, the e-learning platform will be tested with firefighters and individuals with disabilities from four EU countries. The firefighters will first complete the online training and afterwards, they will put in practice what they have learnt by carrying out some simulations and drills with individuals with disabilities. Using the results from the testing, the partners will define the necessary improvements to ensure that the e-learning platform delivers the target learning outcomes.The project will be implemented by a transnational and transectoral partnership involving organisations from the school sector, VET providers, adult education providers, Higher Education Institutions and four fire and rescue services employing professional firefighters and providing continuous training to them. Beyond the partners, the e-learning platform have the potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals because it will be published as an OER (Open Educational Resource) under the Creative Commons license “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)"". Thus allowing anyone to freely use all the content as well as to modify it and build upon."

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. The European Green Deal is a response to these challenges and it aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The European Green Deal covers all sectors of the economy so WE ALL HAVE AN IMPORTANT PART TO PLAY, INCLUDING FIREFIGHTERS. Firefighters are omnipresent in every community across the EU. Between school visits to fire stations, talks given by the fire service to community groups and the lifesaving work, firefighters are very much in the public eye. At a time when there is such scrutiny on all aspects of climate change, firefighters can act as important public advocates in terms of environmental actions. This covers fire stations, which have an environmental impact all day, every day, the transportation involved and the fire fighting work which can be extremely polluting and damaging. Improving the green skills of firefighters will have a positive influence on the day to day environmental impacts that the fire service has in terms of pollution, waste, water and energy consumption. In this context, the objective of the project is to respond to the identified training needs of firefighters by developing the first open and multilingual e-learning platform for firefighters on green skills. The e-learning platform will be accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones. The platform will be available in 5 languages (English, Danish, Lithuanian, Greek and Spanish) and it will contain six e-learning modules:MODULE 1: OPERATIONS. How firefighters can carry out their daily operations out of the fire station (e.g. fire fighting, activities related to SEVESO/COMAH installations and dangerous substances, etc.) in a greener way.MODULE 2: ENERGY. How to reduce electricity consumption in the fire station.MODULE 3: WATER. How to reduce water consumption in the fire station.MODULE 4: WASTE. How to increase the percentage of the station waste that is recycled.MODULE 5: TRANSPORT. How to reduce CO2 emissions. MODULE 6: SOCIETY. How to promote sustainable behaviours in the local community. Each e-learning module will include: an online course on the topic; an online tool to assess the learning outcomes from the online course and to produce a certificate; an online toolkit (set of tools, procedures, and supporting materials) to facilitate to firefighters the effective implementation of the sustainability measures described in the online course. In order to assess how effective the e-learning platform is in improving firefighters’ competences, the e-learning platform will be tested with firefighters from five EU countries. The firefighters will first complete the e-learning and afterwards, they will put in practice what they have learnt by implementing some measures of environmental sustainability in their fire stations. Using the feedback from the testers, the project partners will define the necessary improvements to ensure that the e-learning platform responds to the needs of firefighters.The project will be implemented by a transnational and transectoral partnership involving universities, research centres, experts on e-learning and quality management, and fire and rescue services from five EU countries. Beyond the partners, the e-learning platform has the potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals. Thanks to its publication as an OER under the Creative Commons license 'Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)', anyone will be allowed to freely use all the content as well as to modify it and build upon. Therefore, the e-learning platform will serve as the impulsion for future innovations and developments in the European education sector.

First responders play a prominent and essential role in the everyday situations of all civil society; and among all services they provide are law enforcement, fire suppression, and emergency medical services (EMS). a fast and adequate response to emergencies in all three services can escalate rapidly and emergency responders might be able to do something to stop it if they get there in time. The police might stop an assailant from doing harm (or doing more harm than has already been done); the fire department might be able to rescue victims from a burning building; EMS might be able to resuscitate a person in ​cardiac arrest (one of a very small number of medical conditions guaranteed to result in death if not treated properly and quickly).In case of big disasters they also need to work with interdisciplinary teams and coordination. They everyday activities involve a lot of stressful situations and communication with subjects with special needs. It also involves a many soft skills like decision making, teamwork or stress resilience. Digital advances like satellite image analysis are tools they can incorporate to their daily activities; but as far as the technology advances they need to be trained to make an effective use of the new tools. First responders are under the need of continuous training; and that training can be provided under many tools. STRONG project proposes a serie of online courses that tackle the training need of first responders under a transversal approach; the courses are grouped by theme, not by type of first responders. The main aim of this project is to provide first responders a serie of basic skills to be able to provide an effective response to a serie of circumstances. The online courses are complemented by a digital tool to create an European Network of First Responders. Through this tool they can connect; share experiences; best practices and foster cooperation among first responders team at european level. The challenges they face are usually not circumscribed to a sole territory, so it is crucial to promote the cooperation at european level.Results during the project: Project management procedures and project plans (work plan, Monitoring and Reporting (M&R), communication and dissemination activities, quality plan) agreed and monitoring.4 transnational meetings realized. O1. Research of the state of the art. VR applied on training courses for first responders. O2. Online course: Soft skills for first responders. O3. Online course: Weather menaces. O4. Online course: Health risks and personal risks. O5. Tool for the creation of an European Network of First Responders. 11 first responders and trainers participating in a 4 days international intensive study program (C1)30 first responders and trainers participating in a 5 days international intensive study program (C2)Minimum of 140 people enrolled on each of the online courses.

The partners of the e-PPR project (www.e-ppr.eu) carried out a transnational study between Oct-17 and Jan-18 to identify teachers and students’ needs regarding training on response to the emergencies most likely to occur in schools. In total, 677 school teachers from six EU countries (Denmark, Estonia, Romania, United Kingdom, Spain and Lithuania) participated in this study. Results showed that 22.36% of the teachers and 33.37% of the students have not been trained at all. For 41.46% of the teachers and 47.19% of the students who were trained, the training was 'not enough' because it was limited to evacuation in case of fire (87.75% teachers, 94.18% students) and it was too short (less than 3 hours for 62.53% of the teachers, and less than 1 hour for 58.43% of the students). The emergency areas where more training was demanded were: first aid, fire, terrorist threat, earthquake and toxic cloud.In this context, in order to respond to the identified training needs of primary and secondary school teachers and students across the EU, the objective of the project was to develop the first e-learning platform for primary and secondary school teachers and students on how to respond to the emergencies most likely to occur in EU schools.The e-learning platform is accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones in 5 languages (English, Danish, Spanish, Estonian and Lithuanian) at www.schoolemergency.eu and it has the following sections:E-LEARNING for school teachers on how to respond to the emergencies most likely to occur in EU schools.TOOLKITS for school teachers with ready materials for lessons connected to the emergencies most likely to occur in EU schools.EVALUATION TOOLS to assess the learning and get feedback from the students.ONLINE FORUM AND SOCIAL NETWORKS so teachers across the EU can share their experiences and support each other.Once the first development of the e-learning platform was completed, it was tested by the three partners from the sector of school education, and a Danish school as an associated partner: 15 teachers and 271 students in total participated in the testing. Based on the testers’ feedback, the project partners implemented additional improvements before the final publication of the School Emergency e-learning platform. Beyond the partners, the content of the e-learning platform has the potential to be exploited by a wide range of organisations and individuals. Thanks to its deployment as an OER under the Creative Commons license 'Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)', anyone is allowed to, not only use it, but also to modify it. Therefore, the content of the e-learning platform will serve as the impulsion for future innovations and developments in the sector of school education across the EU.This cross-sectoral and cross-border partnership is an initiative of Frederiksborg Fire and Rescue Service (Denmark) in collaboration with Alcala de Guadaira Fire and Rescue Service (Spain), Estonian Rescue Board (Estonia), Vilnius Division of Civil Protection (Lithuania), Vilniaus 'Genio' school (Lithuania), Gaia school (Estonia), and the high school Profesor Tierno Galván (Spain). The School Emergency project is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union.