Quarterly Progress Report: Mission Ready: Innovation in Humanitarian Security Training

The project duration is from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 2017. During the second quarter of Year 2, from January 1 to March 31, 2016, the project continued to promote the Field Security Management (FSM) tool, which consists of six modules in Arabic, French, and English. The tool aims to increase the capacity of humanitarian actors to deliver safe and effective programs through access to high-quality e-learning and interactive security training. Promotional meetings and potential opportunities were explored during this quarter. RedR and DTS attended a meeting with UNDP in New York in January 2016 to discuss opportunities for developing UNDP surge staff training on the Mission Ready platform. The meeting was attended by 32 representatives from UNDP, UNICEF, UNW, and UNDSS. Following the meeting, RedR is in communication with UNDP and UNDSS training departments to assess how best to tailor the development of another course for their staff. A proposal was submitted to ECHO and DFID to expand Mission Ready's scope and create new training courses, but unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. However, RedR will continue to seek opportunities for further expansion of the platform. Free licenses have been supplied to seven organizations, including Handicap International, Action Contre La Faim, and World Vision Kenya, to test the platform before purchasing a bulk license. By the end of the reporting period, the system had 137 users, with 76 users activated during the quarter. The active users represent 25 different nationalities, with 46% being women and 54% being men. They are working in 20 different countries, with 44 in Europe, 35 in Africa, 5 in the Middle East, and 24 in America. The users who completed the course rated it as relevant or highly relevant to their work, with 97.4% of respondents agreeing. The project has also made progress in developing a new course on Remote Security Management (RSM). A steering committee was formed, and a meeting was held to determine the main topics for each of the four modules. The committee agreed that the most logical structure would be to base the modules around each of the four stages of the project cycle and to consider how RSM ties in to each of these. The development of the new course is being led by RedR and DTS, with input from a consultant, John Tipper. The consultant has expertise in remote security management, understanding of the Middle East, and experience in learning and development concepts within the humanitarian sector. The development process includes the creation of a course overview, draft materials, pre and post tests, and finalization of all module materials. The project has also made progress in translating the Field Security Management course into Spanish. Two Terms of Reference were circulated, one for translation and one for proofreading, among RedR's translation pool. Contracts were awarded for translation and proofreading, with a total value of £3,580. In addition, the project has begun the development work to create the first course, Field Security Management, into an application that can be downloaded and played offline. This will increase access to the course for people working in areas of intermittent internet coverage or low bandwidth. The app development and coding commenced at the end of March, and it is anticipated that the app will go live in mid-Q4. Finally, the project resolved an issue with users not receiving their activation links after paying for their licenses online. The issue was caused by a change in the PayPal account information made by RedR, which had not been updated on the Mission Ready platform. The support team worked closely with RedR to identify and resolve the issue.