The Emirates Foundation is planning to train volunteers to join firemen and other emergency crews in times of crisis.
They will be taught about search-and-rescue missions, putting out fires and crisis management procedures, including helping the various agencies co-ordinate better with each other in the event of a disaster.
Maytha al Habsi, the director of Takatof, the foundation's volunteer programme, told a meeting of GCC volunteer organisations on Monday: "The Government alone cannot solve all the problems."
Ahmed al Ketbi, senior project developer at Takatof, said it had chosen a model used in Sweden, which focuses on responding to crises in groups. She recalled the heavy winds that devastated Kalba and several areas in Fujairah in March.
"We had a crisis and we discovered that we really need rescue volunteers.
"We did have Red Crescent teams on the spot who are more specialised and have more experience than us, but we need to co-ordinate between the Red Crescent, volunteers and the Government during the crisis."
She said they had visited several countries including the US, Italy and Sweden and looked at the schemes run there.
Takatof was launched in 2007. Its first programme saw 100 volunteers renovate Zayed bin al Khattab school in Fujairah.
hdajani@thenational.ae
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Low turnout
Two months before the first round on April 10, the appetite of voters for the election is low.
Mathieu Gallard, account manager with Ipsos, which conducted the most recent poll, said current forecasts suggested only two-thirds were "very likely" to vote in the first round, compared with a 78 per cent turnout in the 2017 presidential elections.
"It depends on how interesting the campaign is on their main concerns," he told The National. "Just now, it's hard to say who, between Macron and the candidates of the right, would be most affected by a low turnout."
