Today marks the end of our newly launched Humanitarian Shelter & Settlements workshop in partnership with and certified by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society (IFRC). The 6-credit course taught students how to effectively plan and coordinate needs assessments, develop and implement strategies and protocols for emergency relief situations, plan refugee camps, and employ physical reconstruction while contemplating community empowerment–all explained by seasoned practitioners from the design, humanitarian and development fields.
Scroll through for a recap in photos and relevant links highlighting our guest professors and key moments throughout the course.
Above: Marta Peña of IFRC explaining the role of the federation within the cluster approach established by the Humanitarian Reform of 2005. She deconstructed the complexities of emergency response and decision-making and explained how “the needs of an affected community are strongly linked to their capacities.”
Above: Paul Cabrera, technical referent for Construction and Sheltering at the MSF Spain, on designing latrines and how proper sanitation can be essential preventing outbreaks like Ebola.
Above: Our students with Manuel Sanchez (center), head of Humanitarian Action at the Spanish Cooperation and Development Agency (AECID).
Above: Workshop with Andreas Schiffer (center) of FLASH (Formación en Logística, Agua, Saneamiento e Higiene) on sanitation in humanitarian crises.
Above: Gonzalo Sánchez-Téran, expert in African Geopolitics and Humanitarian Assistance, simulating on-the-ground emergency scenarios to illustrate the complex decision-making involved in providing humanitarian assistance and setting up refugee camps. Watch this video of a great lecture he gave recently at Ross Institute.
The course also incorporated practical hands-on workshops to learn sustainable, emergency and low-tech construction techniques like Shigeru Ban‘s paper tube structural system and superadobe and rammed earth with Cal-Earth Spain.
If you’re interested in knowing more about what our students learn thoughout the course, make sure to follow our FB page for regular, day-to-day updates on our workshops. Our line-up of guest professors for the next few months includes Dan Lewis of UN Habitat, Isabelle Anguelovski, Sergio Palleroni, Nabeel Hamdi of Oxford Brookes, Camillo Boano of The Bartlett DPU, Clara Irazabal of Columbia University’s Latin Lab, Nathaniel Corum of Architecture for Humanity, and more…so stay tuned!
Fore more information about our master program or next year’s 3-week IFRC-certified course, contact us!