Vocational Training of Firefighters to Enhance Voluntary Firefighting Erasmus Project

Project Title

Vocational Training of Firefighters to Enhance Voluntary Firefighting

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Regional dimension and cooperation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The VOLFIRE project was carried out with the objective of giving occupational training to a group of professional firefighters in Antalya to start volunteer firefighting and establish volunteer fire brigade stations in the settlements where professional firefighter employment is not possible, and the population and the possibility of fire and rescue incidents is low, thus reducing the loss of life and property in case of fires, disasters and emergencies in these rural areas will be possible. The project was also aimed to develop a model for other regions to start volunteer firefighting with certain standards. The project was carried out in the coordination of Antalya Metropolitan Municipality Fire Brigade Department and Governorship of Antalya from Turkey, Fire and Rescue Service of Ljubljana (GBL) from Slovenia, Mayo County Council (MCC) from Ireland and The Czech Association of the Fire Officers (CAFO) from Czech Republic worked on this project as partners. Within the scope of VOLFIRE, the voluntary firefighting systems of 3 European countries was examined and adaptation to Turkey has been planned. The objective of this project is to improve the vocational capacity of the trainers based on European Union standards. Vocational training will increase the competences of trainers and exchanging experiences and knowledge will be the main priority of this project. The main priority of the project is to ensure safe, fast, coordinated in joint disaster/accident response whenever needed. That includes both, professional and volunteer rescue services response and possible implementation of volunteer services establishment where needed. In some areas of European Union fire services are well organized, as volunteer and professional services are working hand in hand for decades, mainly based on tradition in cultural inheritage. This makes providing for efficient and integrated guidelines services and flexible learning. A special guideline has been prepared for volunteer firefighters and firefighter candidates in the project. This guideline contains important firefighting and rescue techniques and images for a volunteer firefighter in such cases fire, traffic accident, search and rescue, first aid etc. Tools have been created of ICT based e-learning program and online communication. The e-learning module was added to the project’s website in 4 different languages which developed by the Slovenian project partner with the support of all project partners in order to keep the knowledge alive for targeted groups and to ensure the continuity of their education. It includes training documents, educational and tutorial short videos and exams to test people’s knowledge. For the training of volunteer firefighting; A total of 38 hours of training curriculum containing 12 topics were developed under the responsibility of the project coordinator with contributions from all project partners. In order to carry on the activities effectively and on time, a Project Guideline for Effective Collaboration (PGEC) was developed and delivered to each partner organization when Partnership Agreement was signed with them. Program rules, work packages, responsibilities were explained in PGEC and served as a guide for each partner through the project term. 16 short videos have been prepared by GBL in accordance with the voluntary firefighting education curriculum to be used in trainings. These videos were uploaded via e-learning module together with other training documents and also will be use for the subsequent training of volunteer firefighters. Analysis has been carried out to initiate voluntary firefighting practices in Antalya where firefighter employment is not possible and the population is low and accordingly, probability of fire incidents occur less likely. The purpose of this analysis is to determine the adequacy of present fire stations and its personnel in Antalya city province and to determine the number of fire stations and volunteer firefighters needed by each. This analysis has been prepared via the executive function of MCC with the contribution of all project partners. MCC has been prepared an evaluation report containing following topics; the nature of project management, clarity in defining project objectives, planning the activities of the project, managing the progress of the activities; management of the cooperative work of the partners, adaptation to time and milestones, and TPM administration and so on. These evaluation reports have been distributed to all partners. Owing to these reports, the opportunity to evaluate the strength of the success of the project has emerged. These collaborations will ensure gains to be obtain advancing the ties of friendship between both groups in European countries and Turkey, developing capacity to do business, transferring of knowledge and skills, enhancing present environment of trust and so on.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 230170,38 Eur

Project Coordinator

Antalya Büyüksehir Belediyesi & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Antalya Valiligi
• CESKA ASOCIACE HASICSKYCH DUSTOJNIKU SDRUZENI
• MAYO COUNTY COUNCIL
• GASILSKA BRIGADA LJUBLJANA