INSARAG 30th anniversary

      

Message from Rudolf Muller, Chief Response Support Branch (RSB), Coordination Division

 

Dear Colleagues, Partners, Friends,

 

I hope this message finds you and your family in good health.

 

It is my pleasure to share with you a piece recently published to commemorate the 30th anniversary of INSARAG, available at: https://unocha.exposure.co/insarag.

 

I would like to thank all the member countries and USAR teams that have shared their pictures with the Secretariat and to express my apologies in advance if we could not include all of them, due to the limited space in the platform.

 

These last three decades have been an incredible journey demonstrating how your tireless efforts have contributed to the creation and development of the INSARAG network. A network that is special for its uniqueness in having such devoted and committed people who work around the globe and with no regrets to pursue the honorable goal to save lives, in very difficult circumstances.

 

I feel personally privileged to have seen how the idea of a small group of people and countries in the 90s has grown so extensively to involve more than 90 countries and organizations today, all of them united under the same objective, to build high quality USAR capacities and adhere to the INSARAG global standards of urban search and rescue.

 

So many people from all around the world have been and are involved in INSARAG’s work and it would be nearly impossible for me to thank all of you individually who have been engaged over this 30-year period, but I would like to express my sincere gratitude especially to those who have been there since the beginning, starting with members from Switzerland and the DACHL group, UK, the US, and the Scandinavians. Special thanks go to Toni Frisch for being the driving force to create this amazing network and now to Manuel Bessler for sustaining it. Within DHA and OCHA I would like to mention the Branch Chiefs, Mr. Robert Souria and Gerhard Putman-Cramer, the Secretariat leads/Section Chiefs, Ola Almgren, Arjun Katoch, Terje Skavdal, Jesper Lund, and now Sebastian Rhodes-Stampa, and the INSARAG Secretariat with Thomas Peter and Winston Chang, as well as all the General Service staff behind the scenes. I do recognize, however, that many more extremely committed people and countries have helped shape INSARAG and this anniversary is a moment to celebrate their work and support.

 

I hope you enjoy reading this story and looking at the pictures that are part of this piece and I sincerely hope you and your family remain safe.