"When disaster strikes people need food, shelter, water and safety. They also need information and they need to be able to communicate – with each other and with those trying to help them. Through information provision and dialogue it is possible to engage people actively in the response: enabling them to make informed decisions about keeping themselves and their families safe, where and how to access essential services, and participating in activities and decisions that affect their lives. In this online self-study course, you will learn how to engage affected communities to help provide the information they need and establish communication mechanisms for dialogue with disaster responders. You’ll be faced with a number of fictitious crises, both natural and man-made, and you will need to respond appropriately [...] On completion of this course you will gain an understanding of: how communication can be used to support disaster-affected people and programme objectives; how to assess the information needs of the community and decide through which channel(s) of communication to reach them; how to create and adapt information and messages to maximise impact; how to develop a communications strategy; how to manage and respond to feedback from the community." (Publisher description)