HSI Simulation in Harold Parker

A slew of foreign aid groups respond to a natural disaster and must face a population in political turmoil, desperate to find the basic survival needs for themselves and their families. Among the displaced refugees there are landmines and armed militia groups, including bands of armed children. Relief workers from organazations suchas Oxfam, Red Cross, and World Vision must coordinate with international and local governments as well as each other. This scenario took place in our own back yard last weekend at the HSI Simulation in Harold Parker State Forest.

The Humanitarian Studies Initiative is a program run cooperatively by HHI and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University designed to prepare crisis response workers for scenarios like we are currently seeing in Japan or Libya. For two weeks a group of roughly 85 students participate in a seminar in preparation for the second phase of the program in which they are placed in a week-long simulation of a humanitarian disaster. The students play the role of the relief workers while the coordinators throw as many scenarios they would possibly face as possible.

Stephanie Rosborough, a HHI researcher and instructor at Harvard Medical School, was a coordinator of the event said the teams of about 7-8 students would face some of the real challenges associated with crisis response and team dynamics. While under heavy stress the teams would need to file daily situation reports, and work closely with the UN, and assess population based needs.

"To develop crisis repsonse plans for their assigned humanitarian agencies their fundamental function was to find, count, and assess population-based needs," Rosborough said.

While the teams are in the field they communicate by text messages to a technology station tucked away in a DCR building. Manned by a group of applied technology researchers and volunteers, the team uses proprietary software that maps out the crisis with the live information streaming from the field. The information can be used to monitor the crisis and aid planning and coordinating the response.

Other volunteers play the part of the at-risk population, militia groups, and border gaurds. At the conclusion of the program the teams adressed a panel of relief coordination groups as they would in a real crisis. They report their findings in the field as well as their response plan and budget proposals. The role of the UNHCR, OCHA, and USAID were played by Michael VanRooyen, Stephanie Rosborough, and Peter Walker respectively.

HHI's leadership comes with years of field experience and expertise to pass on. Michael VanRooyen, or "MVR" for short, is a professor at the Harvard Medical School and at the Harvard School of Public Health. Peter Walker is the Director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University and is a resident of North Andover. Rosborough is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and established a field hospital in Haiti just a week after the earthquake in 2010, along with MVR and HHI's Jennifer Chan (photograpghed front an center at the HSI simulation's tech hub).