Sphere Training – Bahia Humanitarian Mission

The last activity of the Bahia Humanitarian Mission took place on April 1 and 2, in Ilhéus-Bahia, Brasil. The training was organized by the South Regional of Sebrae-BA, which temporarily supported the group that carried it out, the Fraternity – International Humanitarian Missions (FIHM), taking care of the dissemination, the lodging, the food and transportation.

Representatives of five municipalities participated, both from public bodies as well as non-governmental organizations, with a total of 15 people being certified.

Practical activities and stimulus for reflection on the content were carried out, also allowing time for the sharing of experiences. The participants gave very positive evaluations at the end of the training, which achieved a good level of participation on the part of the target audience.

For Claudiana Figueiredo, who has been regional manager of Sebrae-BA for 10 years, and was a participant in the training, “to receive the visit of the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM) through the recommendation of a partner entity of the Sebrae, the ‘Mecenas da Vida’, was one of those good surprises which life brings us, for the Sebrae Organization as well as for me, as a person and citizen who fulfills a social role here in southern Bahia.”

Claudiana says that “as from the first dialogues, we understood that the Sebrae needed to give all its support to the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM) in the actions they were carrying out here in the region, because we perceived that what they could give this society, at this moment, would be of great importance so that our municipalities affected by the heavy rain at the end of December and beginning of January, could move forward in short, medium and long term planning, thus creating conditions and skills that would make us more capable of acting in disaster scenarios.”

“Since then,” she continues, “we have begun to coordinate on a series of possibilities for joint actions (and have implemented some of them), including the Training in Sphere Standards, when we invited a group of people to spend two days receiving this training. All the content presented by the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM) in this course showed us the reality experienced in the last few days and months here in the region, and how to deal with the biggest moments of emergency in this situation, but it also presented us with a new way of looking at what we should do over the medium and long term.

I finished this training very satisfied, much more so than I expected, because now I can deal with events at this level, feeling more competent in my role, that of providing guidance, becoming hands on in situations such as this”, she smiles. And she concludes: “I am immensely grateful to the Humanitarian Fraternity for allowing me to be a part of this work, so beautiful, so professional and so brilliant, which they have brought here to the South Regional of Bahia.”

As Anderson, a humanitarian worker of the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM), has explained to us, “the Sphere Training, besides serving for sharing information or content related to the international protocols of humanitarian response and emergency response, also served as a place for meeting and the sharing of ideas, of lessons learned, generated through the whole response provided and still being provided, after the disaster brought about by the floods in December of 2021.

“At that moment,” he reflects, “we were able to speak a lot about the necessary aspects of prevention in disasters.

Bahia at this time is going through a current phase of recovery, of rebuilding, trying to mitigate the results and aftereffects of the disasters, while at the same time, getting prepared for new challenges that may emerge.”
For Anderson, “something quite interesting in the Bahia Humanitarian Mission was the fact that we arrived there with proposals that didn’t necessarily provide material help, but rather the possibility for bringing out local capabilities for the intervention. And this,” he adds, “is directly related to the participation of the community. It became very evident, during the action, that we were bringing something which the community already had: the strength to transform, to come together and provide mutual support.” And he concludes: “The response was very interesting in the sense of clarifying what people have, such as resilience, the capacity to organize, to overcome, and to rebuild their own lives. Without the participation of the communities,” he concludes, “this wouldn’t have been possible.”

Among the participants, there was a great feeling of gratitude for the information shared. Some remarked that the methodology used during the course “was clear, objective and explanatory,” besides being addressed in an interactive way, which consequently, results in

One of the participants stressed that, taking into account the context in which they are placed, a post-flood scenario, all the knowledge transmitted was relevant, and they summarized the experience in the following way: “the bonding and care for the water were important. The block on food safety reminded me of the path we need to walk in community training with a view to nutrition, and honoring food. The agenda on housing and settlement highlighted the need to foster people’s autonomy in all sectors, especially housing security, so it’s necessary to bring all the symbology of housing and local dignity into context. Anyway, all the points discussed will be very useful in any current and subsequent action with people in the field.”