Sahna First Response (SaFiRe) prototype was designed, for simple and small Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs), with the intention of looking for potential opportunities for implementations. The wish came true when the Seychelles Department of Risk and Disaster Management (DRDM) invited a Sahana team to work on implementing a version of SaFiRe for their emergency information management needs.
A “technology acceptance” evaluation, with Seychelles first response community, shows 98% find SaFiRe to be useful, 86% found it easy to use, and 83% had Extremely or Quite a Good, Beneficial, Wise, and Positive attitude towards using it.
More than 70% of SaFiRe harmonized with the Seychelles emergency information exchange needs. The shortfalls are related to modification that are specific to their business practices (e.g. Seychelles specific SitRep formats). The Sahana team is working on these modifications in preparation for their ambitious roll-out.
SaFiRe is ideal for Small Island Developing Nations. It offers customized templates for Situation-Reports (SitReps), organizationally controlled action plans (and scenarios), notifications to first responders, asset (fleet) management, shelters for emergency clients, are few of the key features (see blueprint).
There are no limits to what SaFiRe can offer because it is built on the Sahana EDEN disaster management platform. Therefore, SaFiRe can easily adopt all available Sahana Eden features. This allows users to customize SaFiRe to their emergency management needs and practices.
Seychelles is committed to automating and integrating the Seychelles Incident Command and Control information management. The DRDM hosted workshop invited participants from the Seychelles first response community, mostly practitioners working in their respective communication centers (i.e. call & dispatch centers). The requirements were realized through the four-day consultative, experimentation and evaluation process (24-28 September 2018); held at the DRDM National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC).
Click to access the training material and agenda
This work was made possible through funding from the South African Development Community as part of their initiative in disaster risk management.