2024-09-22 05:00:04
The volunteers for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (OPG) have demonstrated, through their smiles, their dedication and their sense of hospitality, how much volunteering plays an essential role in the most significant moments of our history.
What is less well known is that they did not only wear the now familiar green striped jerseys and colourful bucket hats. There were in fact more than 20,000 of them, from small and large associations, wearing the red vests of the rescuers.
At each event site, during the opening and closing ceremonies, or in the heart of the fan zones, these volunteers provided health coverage day and night for an event of unprecedented scale. These women and men, who came from all over France and overseas, looked after thousands of spectators, families, and sometimes even athletes.
Generalize training
Discreet champions, these rescuers from approved civil security associations have prepared for months, even years. Their know-how is the fruit of rigorous training and continuous practice.
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But to adapt to the changing security context, systemic crises or more frequent disasters, we will have to rely on them more and more, on their associations, and on citizens themselves. Not just to provide assistance in emergencies, but also to help prepare, protect and recover populations from crises. These new challenges require a change in practices and a commitment from the State.
To make citizens the first actors in the rescue chain, it will first be necessary to generalize training in life-saving actions. Note, for example, that only 40% of French people are trained, while in Germany, this figure reaches 80%!
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To enable associations, which know the territories and the vulnerabilities, to be true partners of the public authorities in the event of a crisis, they will have to be systematically associated with the territorial and national coordination bodies.
A valuable and indispensable resource
Finally, if this volunteering “costs nothing” to the community, it is a precious and indispensable resource for collective life. With thousands of people helped each year, it deserves to be valued and facilitated: valued by the real implementation, for these volunteers, of already existing recognition mechanisms such as the civic engagement account ; and facilitated by support for their training, their equipment, their materials, which are regulated by the State and which, themselves, cost their associations dearly.
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