Funded by the European Community and with a total duration of two years (January 2018 – December 31, 2019), the V-IOLA project (Volunteer International On Line Asset) strengthened the risk management capacities of Serbia and Montenegro through actions aimed at strengthening the management of online volunteering and volunteer systems.
The project consortium, led by the Italian Civil Protection Department , supported civil protection and volunteer organizations in the beneficiary countries, allowing them to join the European Volunteer Network , and allowed the Red Cross of Montenegro to become part of the host organizations of volunteers, thus contributing to strengthening civil protection systems to cope with both natural and anthropic disasters. The project promoted online volunteering as an integral part of disaster risk reduction strategies to increase community resilience, for example by creating databases and datasets that can be used in planning and supporting crisis interventions. Supported by the Italian chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, the partner organizations were able to increase their knowledge in this area. This also allowed the Italian Red Cross to create a stable Data Management team, which supported response actions during Hurricane Idai in Mozambique (2019) and response management for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The V-IOLA project also developed training programmes for trainers in volunteer management and emergency management. It identified and tested the skills, tools, platforms and applications used. The results achieved by the volunteers, online and offline, were also tested with practical exercises. These activities are carried out by promoting the use of low cost technologies such as smartphones, 360° photographs and augmented and virtual reality. In particular, CIMA Research Foundation led the team of experts who developed an experimental application for online volunteering training based on Virtual Reality systems.
Finally, audiovisual material was developed for the development of guidelines for storytelling activities in the field of awareness raising.
CIMA Research Foundation participated in V-IOLA as a scientific organization active in research for civil protection. Within the project it has therefore supported from the management point of view the Italian Department of Civil Protection, and the consortium in the implementation of all activities, in particular those related to training and development of training modules for volunteers and online volunteers.