Emergency Response and Urgent Appeals

Background

Following the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017, we realised that we have no strategy for involving Freegle in helping with emergencies. We discussed this on Development Group and agreed we can be more organised, but any proposal needs to be proportionate to our resources. Having a plan in place will help us be more effective in a national or local emergency/crisis/disaster. Getting involved on our own is difficult and usually not appropriate, so the strategy adopted takes into account autonomy of groups and primarily being reactive to other organisations.

Strategy

• Offering our network as a means for others to get out information and ask for help in the longer term is where our strength lies.
• We need to be known by agencies and organisations involved in local resilience forums (LRFs) [[1]]
• In a national emergency we should use support@ilovefreegle.org as a central contact point, as it is manned as near to 24/7 as possible by volunteers, and there is a small team rather that one individual to cope with messages.
• An information sheet/guide should be provided with who does what and where on the wiki for national personnel. See Emergency Response and Urgent Appeals - National Response
• Central will be told that help has been requested and what response has been made.
• If the situation merits messages being quickly posted on groups, the Board can make the decision to post directly on FD groups, with non-FD groups being bulk mailed with a message to be placed locally.
• An information sheet/guide will be provided on the wiki for local group volunteers. See Emergency Response and Urgent Appeals - Group Response.

Review

This strategy should be reviewed after any occasion that the procedure is used to learn lessons and check that it is fit for purpose.