A global group of academics, students and alumni from Deakin University is convening weekly virtual workshops to help foreign-based leaders solve humanitarian issues that are worsened by the COVID-19 crisis.
Staff from the University’s Centre for Humanitarian Leadership coordinates the video conferencing sessions held every Tuesday night to help leaders in 17 countries come up with new solutions for persisting local challenges.
In each session, the group collaborates with two groups of leaders, speaking both French and English, and many based in countries with new restrictive isolation measures that make it more difficult to give adequate support to local people.
The centre's co-founder and Deakin Associate Professor Phil Connors said the pandemic has caused an unprecedented challenge to the world’s humanitarian system.
"COVID-19 has further illuminated the weaknesses of the system, which was set up to provide a surge force of experts from global bodies and international NGOs when there is a disaster. But with travel restrictions, local organisations have been forced to take the lead," he said.
"This has put enormous pressure on leaders on the ground and shown we need to change our thinking and build local capacity through a global systems approach. These virtual meetings are our initial and humble response to mitigate some of these issues."
Brad Fogden, Acting Commander of District Eight with Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA), is among the centre’s humanitarian leaders participating in the workshops. He manages local issues and feeds information to CFA's pandemic team.
He shared that while individual circumstances are different across countries, there are also many similarities to their experiences.
"Hearing how the others are dealing with varying levels of lock-down and workloads is helping me to develop better strategies. I’ve had to become more adaptive and find ways to empower my team,” Fogden said.
“Large-scale disasters can create greater resilience. [That’s when] people realise what they’re really capable of."