from the horizon

Well the whole point of my trip to India (and why the NGO had paid for it) was for me to attend a four day RedR (Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief) Humanitarian Logistics Course.

I’ll go into a bit of detail for the benefit of those people who have no idea what logistics is about (this would have included me 3 months ago!).

The basic principle of logistics is the get things and people to the right place, at the right time, in the right conditions, at the right price.

The main steps of logistics are:

• Procurement
• Transport
• Warehousing

In the course we went through all the aspects of these things. We were taught about logistics systems, and how logistics fits into organizations. Logistics is a support function. We supply the resources which other people use.

We learnt about Food Aid, and the WFP (World Food Program – UN agency) and heard some scary statistics on how many people are hungry (almost 1 billion, 25,000 die each day). The figures for India were scary, several 100 million I think, especially seeing as they have a food surplus.

We also went through broader issues like security, staff management and customs issues.

The course contained a lot of group work and practical exercises, which were interesting, although I did find the calculation work frustratingly basic.

We had one activity to demonstrate the difficulties of moving people. A spider web out of rope was made, and we had to get a group of people through the holes, and we were only able to use each hole twice (there were about 15 holes and 20 people for each group). It involved people climbing through some holes, and being carried through other holes. I’d done a similar exercise before, but it definitely demonstrated the difficulties of coordinating a group of people that big.

On the final day we had an all day simulation exercise where we had to organize the Logistics to get food and other supplies to flood effected people in the fictional Mosiland. This involved calculating and sourcing the amount of supplies people needed, finding the transport, and work out how much everything would cost. It was really interesting because we used most of what we had learnt over the past days.

It was an exercise with dealing with limited time, insufficient information and coordinating between the separate groups, all of whom had different responsibilities.

Overall I found that I was familiar with a lot of the material on the course. I guess I’ve picked up a bit during my period volunteering in Aceh. However it was really good to consolidate everything that I’ve learnt about logistics. The practical exercises were good, and I left with a whole lot of really good information and electronic resources! I also met a whole bunch of really interesting people who are involved in the humanitarian world.

For some more photos from another person on the course check out: http://logisticsindia.blogspot.com/

Also check out the report I prepared on the course here: RedR Humanitarian Logistics Course Review