Untrained on the frontline: The importance of predeployment training for aid workers and volunteers

BASEL — Using the light on his phone as a torch, James worked into the early evening to reconnect the water supply to a refugee housing unit on a long-term camp in Greece. It was well past curfew and unsafe for him to be on camp. He was not supposed to fix the plumbing for individual units in any case. But that night, none of that mattered to him; people needed his help. That is why he volunteered in the first place, after all.

But, he could have put himself and the family he wanted to help in danger.