PCT creates Emergency Relief Vehicle Team to boost emergency response effectiveness

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3131 Edition

February 27-March 4, 2012

General Assembly News

PCT creates Emergency Relief Vehicle Team to boost emergency response 
effectiveness

Reported by Chen Yi-hsuan

Written by Lydia Ma 

To brace for unpredictable natural disasters in the future, PCT Church and 
Society Committee created an “Emergency Relief Vehicle Team” recently in 
southern Taiwan. This team held its first meeting and training on February 20, 
2012 at Koupei Presbyterian Church and a vehicle practice field in Tainan.

The purpose of this first meeting was to rally together church members with 
four-wheel drive cars, jeeps, or license to drive heavy-duty vehicles and those 
who had experience as volunteer firefighters and encourage and train them into 
becoming a team of professional volunteers that PCT could count on to help in 
the frontlines in case of emergencies.

This is the first time that efforts to create a team like this one has been 
managed by the General Assembly, but the increasing damage wrought by typhoons 
in recent years has prompted the Church and Society Committee to think of more 
effective ways of responding to climate-related emergencies so as to decrease 
the extent of damages.

Church and Society Committee Secretary Rev. Huang Che-yen said that the goal of 
this team is to meet and train on a regular basis so that it will be ready to 
go and help in the frontlines when disaster strikes.

On that day, participants got some on-hand training with the help of Tainan 
Volunteer Firefighters’ Captain Liao Po-jung. Liao spoke first on some 
practical aspects of emergency relief, including the distribution of tasks, 
search and rescue, and how to proceed given possible scenarios that he had 
encountered previously as a volunteer firefighter.

Participants travelled to a nearby practice field in the afternoon to learn 
driving techniques such as how to handle steep slopes, how to coordinate and 
quickly switch vehicles, how to drive through swamps, etc. The practice session 
ended with a formal declaration of the founding of this ministry.

After the creation of this team in southern Taiwan, Church and Society 
Committee hopes to create another team in eastern Taiwan in October of 2012.

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