Community Action for Disaster Response (CADRE)
The Community Action for Disaster Response (CADRE) program is a community-based disaster response initiative developed under the Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER), a regional training program initiated by USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and implemented by the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) in partnership with Red Cross National Societies. Running from 2009 to 2014 across nine Asian countries — Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Vietnam — CADRE focuses on building local disaster response capacity at the community level, where the need is most immediate.
The program is grounded in the recognition that in the 24–48 hours following a major disaster, communities are often entirely on their own before professional responders can arrive. CADRE’s three-day training curriculum equips community members with practical skills in first aid and basic life support, triage and mass casualty management, basic search and rescue, incident command, fire and water emergencies, dead body management, and community hazard awareness. The curriculum draws on existing Red Cross training materials and components from other PEER programs including Medical First Responder and Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue training.
A dedicated Training for Instructors (CADRE TFI) course supports national and community-level replication of the program across all PEER countries, building a sustainable network of trained instructors capable of bringing these skills to vulnerable communities at scale.
The CADRE program is an expansion of the PEER program to teach people how to deal with mass casualty incidents, provide triage and first aid to many injured people, and carry out light search and rescue operations. These skills may all be necessary following a flood, landslide or earthquake, where a community can be devastated and many buildings may have collapsed. The CADRE courses aims to enhance existing emergency first aid trainings for communities. It adds further skills and some technical knowledge, to help community responders’ deal with the complex, traumatic and volatile situation they may face.
Skills learned within CADRE:
- Understanding hazards, emergencies and disasters in the community
- Developing community response groups
- How to secure family and prepare to respond
- First Aid and Basic Life Support
- Incident Command systems and Triage
- Dead Body Management
- Fire Emergencies
- Light Search and Rescue
- Water Emergencies