Our main goal is to increase the safety of Hungarian people, to prepare them against disasters of their area and help them, if they are in trouble. We did a lot for this in 2013.

On 15th of March there was a big blizzard in Europe — in Hungary too. Our volunteers helped the drivers who were stranded in the motorways and people who couldn’t go home due to the weather. We set up and ran a public shelter and rescued several cars with hand tools.

Hungary is very endangered of flood. Each year there are multiple floods in the country. Sometimes they are quite small, but in 2013 it was ‘the flood of the century’ on the Danube. Between 5th and 16th of June nearly 100 of our voluntaries worked on the dams of the Margaret Island and on another places of Budapest. They were not just building the dams but directed the work in two workstations as well. Our involvement to the management of the disaster was a big honour for our Association from the professional disaster management organisation. After the top of flood we were pumping water out of cellars for a week. In this 12 days our voluntaries worked a total of 1728 hours in 12 hours shift. It was our biggest deployment during the 9 years of our existence.

The protection of the society is very important in the life of our association. In 2013 we helped two times the professional disaster management organisation to operate public shelters because of finding bombs on constructions sights. In such a case we make place for the citizens who have to leave their homes for a while.

In 2013 we organised 3 BASIC courses for people who would like to join us. In these courses we prepared 30 voluntaries for the protection against disasters. Beside that, the Association organised other courses and trainings too, e.g. in topic of first aid or ABC protection. In addition, we had trainings for children to learn about the civil protection and support their self-rescue ability.

The Association takes part in the Central Rescue Services of Budapest. As part of this initiative the Central-Buda Volunteer Civil Protection Association, as the FEMERAID International Budapest Unit considers very important to present their knowledge for other organizations as in Budapest, on the countryside or even in other countries.

In March of 2013 we got a special ribbon to our flag from the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem Knights of Malta Federation of the Autonomous Priories.

In July of 2013 our flag was decorated again by the General Director of the professional disaster management organisation for taking part in the flood protection of Budapest.

In 2013 we could further develop our first aid equipment, expand our technical rescue apparel, change our mobile control center and buy our own tents for work. There were essential and important developments in the Association’s life.

Between two alarms we hold a lot of drills. In this year the biggest one was the ‘VIHAR’ in August. In three days we practiced the most frequent functions of the Association, for example technical rescue, first aid, and some rare tasks (e.g. firefighting), too. It was a good team building event as well.

We solely finance our activities from privat donations, If you have any possibility to help our work please contact us on kozpont@opve.hu