Young people try out an emergency exercise

16 March 2010

Swine flu, terrorist attacks and extreme weather have all been the subject of government preparedness exercises, but few people know what is involved in planning for emergencies. This will be the starting point of a simulation exercise for young people, to be held in a nuclear bunker in Sussex on March 18 as part of the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) Festival of Social Science.

Wearing neutral half masks (used to conceal facial expressions of the participants), the group will take part in a tabletop exercise designed to explore the questions that arise in planning for an emergency, and the kind of decisions that have to be taken.

"The idea is to convey the idea that these decisions are taken by well-meaning, faceless professionals doing their jobs," explains Ms Namita Chakrabarty, University of East London, who is organising and leading the event. "People complain about how the government handles the risk of epidemics, bomb attacks and flooding but they seldom understand the planning and communication processes involved."

The event will bring together techniques drawn from Ms Chakrabarty's background in performance, work in community arts and creative writing, as well as from her current research on civil defence pedagogies, how the general public learn to be prepared for emergency situations. Her research has involved observing many preparedness exercises.

"The programme will include a two-hour workshop to find out what we mean by 'an emergency', and will include preliminary work with a mask artist, Paola Cavallin, who trained in the Italian tradition of commedia dell arte, to explore the performance of the professional using the mask. The tabletop exercise and early-evening performance session will take place in an iconic location where planning for emergencies takes place in real life," she says. "The group will go through various decisions making improvised dialogue, from 'Day One,' to 'Day Three' of an imaginary scenario, just like the professionals. It's about staging a performance that is in itself a rehearsal."

"I think this is the first time that this type of performance exercise including young people has been attempted in this way. The emergency preparedness industry is an important growth sector and I hope our event will make young people more aware of these job opportunities and the work of preparedness," Namita Chakrabarty comments.

Although the Emergency Exercise 2010 event will be attended by only 20 people, including drama students and MA students of emergency planning, it will be made available to a wider audience through the Internet. A blog will begin at 6pm when participants can express their thoughts and perceptions about key terms. The tabletop simulation will be filmed and will go live at the end of the week along with the participants' reflections on the experience.