About Us |
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Training In Aid was first established as a consultancy group in 2012. Our trainers have been operating at the leading edge of humanitarian response, learning and development for over a decade - often embedded within organisational training units.
Rich Parker, Founder and Lead Training Specialist
Rich's humanitarian career has encompassed wide exposure to the UN community, international NGOs, Emergency Medical Teams, regional response and national government organisations.
Before founding Training In Aid in 2015, as the surge training officer at headquarters of UN OCHA, he managed a global training service preparing hundreds of rostered UN experts for emergency field deployments worldwide. During these years, Rich developed numerous high profile projects for inter-agency partners and disaster coordination networks, incorporating emergencies such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and the Ebola outbreak response in West Africa.
As senior humanitarian trainer for RedR Australia during 2008 - 2011, Rich's core portfolio covered the Asia-Pacific international NGO and UN community. He was the lead trainer assigned to design and deliver the acclaimed training programme for the Australian Medical Assistance Team scheme; a model which has been exported worldwide for use across the Emergency Medical Team (EMT) network.
As an independent consultant in the intervening years, Rich extended his training services to new client groups, including refugee crisis partners in East and Central Africa, and emergency response teams in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. He also deployed on operational assignments as a field security officer, providing safety advice and crisis management skills to ensure the wellbeing of staff and programmes in hostile environments.
Before joining the humanitarian profession, Rich started his career as a front-line infantry officer with the British Army. For six years he served in operational command appointments, training and civil-military coordination roles. He completed two field missions to Afghanistan, led counter-terrorism teams in Northern Ireland and became a jungle specialist through his experiences in Central America. Upon leaving the military, Rich worked for several years as an expedition leader and guide in the adventure travel sector, leading and preparing teams for challenging projects in many developing countries.
Rich holds chartered status in training and development, a degree with honours in psychology, a diploma in security risk management, remote first aid and various leadership qualifications in extreme and austere environments - including mountains, jungles, deserts and oceans. His written articles in the field of training design are published in professional journals. He continues to be an active roster member for the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) Teams and for RedR Australia as part of the UN Standby Partnership Programme. His home-base is in Geneva, Switzerland.
Rich Parker, Founder and Lead Training Specialist
Rich's humanitarian career has encompassed wide exposure to the UN community, international NGOs, Emergency Medical Teams, regional response and national government organisations.
Before founding Training In Aid in 2015, as the surge training officer at headquarters of UN OCHA, he managed a global training service preparing hundreds of rostered UN experts for emergency field deployments worldwide. During these years, Rich developed numerous high profile projects for inter-agency partners and disaster coordination networks, incorporating emergencies such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and the Ebola outbreak response in West Africa.
As senior humanitarian trainer for RedR Australia during 2008 - 2011, Rich's core portfolio covered the Asia-Pacific international NGO and UN community. He was the lead trainer assigned to design and deliver the acclaimed training programme for the Australian Medical Assistance Team scheme; a model which has been exported worldwide for use across the Emergency Medical Team (EMT) network.
As an independent consultant in the intervening years, Rich extended his training services to new client groups, including refugee crisis partners in East and Central Africa, and emergency response teams in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. He also deployed on operational assignments as a field security officer, providing safety advice and crisis management skills to ensure the wellbeing of staff and programmes in hostile environments.
Before joining the humanitarian profession, Rich started his career as a front-line infantry officer with the British Army. For six years he served in operational command appointments, training and civil-military coordination roles. He completed two field missions to Afghanistan, led counter-terrorism teams in Northern Ireland and became a jungle specialist through his experiences in Central America. Upon leaving the military, Rich worked for several years as an expedition leader and guide in the adventure travel sector, leading and preparing teams for challenging projects in many developing countries.
Rich holds chartered status in training and development, a degree with honours in psychology, a diploma in security risk management, remote first aid and various leadership qualifications in extreme and austere environments - including mountains, jungles, deserts and oceans. His written articles in the field of training design are published in professional journals. He continues to be an active roster member for the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) Teams and for RedR Australia as part of the UN Standby Partnership Programme. His home-base is in Geneva, Switzerland.
Associate Training Specialists
Training In Aid benefits from a talented short-list of expert associates enabling us to scale-up our team for large or specialised projects in your region.
Training In Aid benefits from a talented short-list of expert associates enabling us to scale-up our team for large or specialised projects in your region.
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Gordon Klussmann
Gordon has more than ten years of experience in election observation, peace-keeping and humanitarian affairs. He is an adult training and programme coordination specialist who learned early on that so-called ‘soft skills’ and trouble-shooting capabilities are the most important assets in his work, whether at headquarters or on the ground. He started his career with Germany’s seconding agency and went on to design and implement rule of law training programmes with the EU and the UN in several African countries, including Egypt, Ghana and Kenya. He was subsequently deployed to Afghanistan, where he delivered rule of law training sessions to prosecutors and judges and Georgia, where he built the capacity of hundreds of staff members. Throughout his career, he has developed and delivered numerous pre-deployment and induction training programmes, as well as training of trainers and security training programmes and other tailor-made sessions aimed at building the capacity of frontline practitioners on a global scale. His most recent position was as Training Coordinator for the UN Standby Partnership Programme, where he managed an inter-agency portfolio centred on capacity building and advisory services for UN and INGO training departments. Nuran Higgins
Nuran has over 20 years professional experience in the humanitarian sector with International Red/Cross Red Crescent Movement, UN, and INGOs working in senior leadership, operational and technical roles in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Areas of specialization include; humanitarian-conflict nexus, disaster preparedness and response, logistics and supply chain management, health systems strengthening and service delivery, leadership and governance transformation, women, peace and security, gender, protection and social inclusion mainstreaming, mental health, wellbeing and resilience. Nuran is an active member of global emergency response surge rosters with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Disaster Assessment Coordination (UNDAC) and RedR Australia. When not on mission she works as an independent consultant. Most recently she was the lead consultant for World Health Organization (WHO) with the second revision of the Classification and Minimum Standards for Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) “Blue Book” which emphasis and priority is to provide guidance to member states and relevant ministries and INGOs to build both national, international capacities and establishing quality standards for operational service delivery. The development of the publication involved extensive collaboration with multi-level stakeholders including state governments and ministries, donors, UN, INGOs and Emergency Medical Team technical experts. Throughout her career, adult learning and development has remained a constant thread. As an academic-practitioner she was involved in the design, development and teaching of the first Masters in Humanitarian studies offered in the Asia/Pacific region by Deakin University. Other engagements with Deakin University have included Graduate Certificate of Humanitarian Leadership and Master of International and Community Development and with Charles Darwin University's Bachelor of Humanitarian & Community Studies, Master of Humanitarian & Emergency Management Studies. Within the humanitarian sector Nuran has been involved in the design, development and delivery of emergency response surge team leader and operational trainings programs for IFRC nationally, regionally and internationally, as well as an associate trainer with RedR Australia. Since 2020 Nuran has worked with Training In Aid in supporting training exercises on behalf of WHO, UNHCR, UNSGM, AUSMAT, NZMAT and JICA. Jeanette Dyson
Jeanette is a communications specialist with more than 25 years of industry experience. Having started out in public relations, working both in-house and for agencies, she has a wealth of media experience covering online, offline and broadcast media. For the past 20 years, Jeanette has worked freelance, providing copywriting and communications services for a range of NGOs, government and multinational organisations, including the NHS, YMCA and Arla Foods plc. She has also written and delivered various copywriting and communications training courses aimed at senior managers, business owners and apprentices. Since 2020, Jeanette has worked closely with TIA, providing communications and media expertise. In her capacity as media and communications professional, she has supported training exercises on behalf of WHO, UK Emergency Medical Team (EMT), UNHCR and JICA. Her work includes writing and designing support materials such as customised press articles, websites and video products. Louise Robinson
Lou has over 20 years of professional experience in international humanitarian operations with the United Nations, government and non-government organisations. Her skill set transfers into training facilitation on emergency preparedness and disaster response with a special focus on humanitarian start-up operations, security risk management and training of trainers. Prior to this she served in the Australian Army (Signals and Medical Corps) before joining the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) as a professional emergencies officer from 1995- 2005. Active learning events include delivering multiple HA/DR workshops and Train the Trainer’s in China, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, East Timor, Ethiopia, Egypt, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, DR. Con-go, Senegal, Cameroon, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Italy, UK, USA and Japan. Lou has designed and delivered the field safety training “Travel Smart” series for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, project managed WFP’s e-Learning project “Getting Ready for Emergencies,” is a mentor to Japanese associates of the Hiroshima Peacebuilders Centre Peace for Asia Program and lead facilitator for the Australian Government’s Rapid Response Team Training, SEA-PAC Regional Emergency Preparedness workshops, and Australian and New Zealand Medical & Surgical Teams response to international disasters. Lou has recently returned from Liberia as the WHO Training Coordinator for West Africa for the 2014 Ebola response. Lou is founder and director of Australian-based organisation, INSITU-TRAINING. Rolf Bakken
Rolf has more than 15 years of experience with emergency response and coordination of humanitarian assistance. Before that, he worked for the Armed Forces, the Customs, and was also a volunteer dog-handler and instructor for the search and rescue services in Norway He holds a Masters in Disaster Management, is a member of the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) Team and is on the roster of the Assessment Capacity Project (ACAPS). He has worked in the Middle East, South East Asia, Asia, West and East Africa, and Caribbean. Between missions, he works with methodology development for disaster management and humanitarian coordination. Rolf also works extensively with adult learning and training design based on participatory learning methods and action based learning. He has worked on numerous simulation exercises and training courses and held the position as a Training Coordinator for ACAPS. Examples of clients include; UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Programme (JEU), Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS), University of Copenhagen/Lund University and numerous agencies/non-governmental organisations. |
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Martin Fisher
A British national based in Budapest, Martin has spent over 17 years working in the humanitarian sector in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. Beginning with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies he gained expertise and field experience in strategic and operational planning, monitoring and evaluation, before working for UN OCHA as regional disaster preparedness advisor, training on coordinated needs assessments and as course designer and lead facilitator for UNDAC. Most recently he set up the RedR UK office in Amman, Jordan, serving the Middle East humanitarian community with capacity building initiatives in Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Yemen. Throughout his career, Martin has been involved in adult learning in a range of subjects at universities and with humanitarian organisations. He applies a systems thinking approach that encourages staff, volunteers, affected communities and all stakeholders to exchange perspectives, practical experiences and promote a culture of quality. Daniela Martini
As an instructional designer and capacity building specialist, Daniela has highly-developed skills in knowledge management, honed throughout years of experience within international organizations. Daniela has worked with the WHO Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) initiative, where she was responsible for the coordination of activities supporting the development of regional emergency response mechanisms. Before WHO, Daniela was an e-learning and development specialist in OCHA Geneva and has also previously worked for IT UNICEF, where she advised on learning and knowledge sharing methods, focusing on information and communication technology for e-learning, blended learning and workplace learning. Her specialties include adult learning and the instructional design of learning and training activities, technology enhanced learning (networked e-learning), new technologies (learning content management systems, authoring software and social software) and knowledge management. Daniela holds chartered status in eLearning and capacity building, a master degree with honours in International Communication, a bachelor degree in communication and education and numerous other qualifications in knowledge and information management. She is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Russian. |
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