HLA Education in Emergencies training across the Pacific Islands

The HLA Asia Pacific Regional Centre has launched its innovative Education in Emergencies (EiE) training in the Pacific Islands – with the first phase successfully delivered in Papua New Guinea between 24-26 July.

At the request of Save the Children Australia, the HLA’s Asia EiE Regional Development Manager, Efren Lubuguin, embarked on a month-long EiE Fundamentals training programme in the Pacific Islands. During this time, Efren has been leading and delivering in-person group training in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga, with support from in-country co-facilitators.

EiE Fundamentals is a training programme delivered globally by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy, with the aim of equipping country office education and EiE staff with the fundamental competencies to be part of initiating, designing and implementing a quality EiE response in their context.

The training in Papua New Guinea follows a condensed format which was successfully piloted for women in Islamabad. Contextualised for the Pacific Islands, this interactive training format utilises a ‘learning by doing approach’ with case studies focusing on climate induced emergencies.

In Papua New Guinea, 16 participants – 11 women and five men – benefited from this three-day programme. They represented a diverse range of organisations: local organisations, UN and development agencies, government, and international INGOs including Save the Children.

The programme content was tailored to focus on priority areas identified by a learning needs assessment, including physical and psychological protection, teacher supply and wellbeing and assessment, analysis and design in EiE. The training also emphasised topics such as cross-cutting issues in EiE, child participation and safeguarding, and inclusive and quality education.

The participants responded very positively to this training, praising its relevance, and strengthening their work in managing EiE response during current climate-induced emergencies.

Reflecting on this training, the HLA’s Efren Lubuguin said:

“This is a great first session in the EiE Fundamentals series across the Asia Pacific. The training provided the platform for Save the Children Papua New Guinea and its partners to learn, discuss and plan next steps in systematising EiE efforts in the country.

The presence of the government partner, development partners like JICA and PNG Australia, other INGOs and national organisations made this three-day learning process more meaningful and purposeful in helping children during crises.”

Participant feedback echoed these reflections:

“This is the first time a partner is offering a training like this one and I hope that we can continue to run more trainings like this in future on trending themes to ensure that our activities in education are relevant to the changing times.”

“[I] felt content at the end of Day 2 [showed that] we have been doing activities in an ad-hoc situation…today’s training showed [a] very systematic and organized way of dealing with EiE.”

Next steps

This training in Papua New Guinea will feed into a proposed review of the Department of Education’s Emergency Action Plan led by the government partner together with Save the Children and other partners. Furthermore, individual organisations have committed to strengthening and integrating child participation, child safeguarding, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), and social-emotional learning (SEL) to their current activities and programmes.

The HLA’s Efren Lubuguin has now completed the full Pacific Islands EiE Fundamentals training programme across Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga, with a further article sharing the details of this training coming soon.

Efren Lubuguin and the HLA Asia Pacific Regional Centre extends thanks to Save the Children Australia and Papua New Guinea, and to all participants for their active engagement in this training initiative.