In August-December, 2011 the Armenian Red Cross Society implemented "ARCS capacity building in the regions" project by the financial support of UK aid from the Department for International Development (DFID).
The aim of the project was to strengthen one of the ARCS regional branches through involving new volunteers in the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) activities. Training on Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) and DRR issues was organized in order to integrate the volunteers into ARCS and DRR activities.
Plan of action for the first three months was developed at the end of training. The volunteers started their activities according to the plan in the selected target Vardarat community of Shirak region. The volunteers implemented VCA in order to explore the threatening risks and scale of the vulnerability forwards those risks and summarizing assessment results, developed VCA report with a map with community risk zones.
Awareness raising training sessions on Disasters were also organized in the school of the community, proceeded with an evacuation and children quiz. Moreover, the awareness level of the community population was raised through meetings, distribution and placement of DRR materials in public places.
