On 11 November 2021 took place the Work Cafè organised by Agencija za ruralni razvoj Zadarske zupanije AGRRA.

From 11 November, in fact, the AGGRA started organizing a series of meetings aimed at engaging both local civil protection and citizens into informally discussing the role of Civil Protection as well as how to cooperate with it in case of hazardous situations.

This first Work Café focused on:

• presenting the ECITIJENS project
• pilot deployments
• the EDSS platform
• the role of social media

On 3- 7 May 2022 a Work Cafè was organized in Molise by Regione Molise, Lead Partner of the ECITIJENS project, in collaboration with its Civil Protection Department. It was aimed at improving the expertise of professionals on decision-making and management tools, such as the ECITIJENS EDSS platform, as an innovative technology for crisis management in Molise, a region particularly vulnerable to natural risks.

The work café was held with professional accessibility certifiers and it saw the participation of some journalists, architects, engineers, surveyors, geologists, agricultural experts, as well as regional officials of the Civil Protection Service who participated in the training that took them to receiving a professional qualification for the assessment of building accessibility after seismic occurrences.

During the event, a specific section was organized only for journalists, in collaboration with the regional branch of the journalists’ association (Ordine dei Giornalisti), with the aim of:

- informing the journalists about the ECITIJENS project,

- presenting the EDSS platform as a result of 3-years of transnational cooperation

- discussing a possible regulatory framework for its adoption.

The journalists learned how the E-CITIJENS Emergency Decision Support System is designed as to support emergency management by collecting information from social media networks, institutional sources as well as sensors and swiftly identify critical situations with respect to three target risks: floods, forestfires and earthquakes.

The growth of social media technologies has increased the public’s ability to mobilize and share information with each other. The ECITIJENS project is taking this as an opportunity for a better involvement of citizen in contributing to the management of crises, which, could be usefully channeled also towards a better cooperation with journalists as well.

With this training, they enhanced their knowledge of an innovative tool to allow citizens journalism as well, as a way to help officials and first responders gather up-to-date emergency-related information and optimize their response efforts.

With these events the ECITIJENS Awareness Raising Campaign moves forward with more Civil Protection insiders aware of the potential of the EDSS and of interregional cooperation.