Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Response

Prepare Yourself and Your Community

POSTPONED UNTIL 2026

Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Response is a three-module certificate program designed to prepare you and your community for the impacts of climate chaos and an unknown future. This program’s classes will cover pre-disaster planning and preparedness, emergency response tools, and post-disaster recovery.

We may not be able to avoid all disasters, but we can be ready to do our part when they come.

Classes

Class 1
Emergency & Disaster Planning

Class 2
Preparing for Disasters

Class 3
Bioremediation & Earth Repair

Certificate Program

*To earn a certificate, students must complete all three classes, assigned homework, and readings.

Take all three classes as a comprehensive Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response  Certificate program or individually for focused learning.

Modules

Take all three classes for a Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Response certificate.

Take classes individually for personal growth and to deepen your knowledge.

Class 1 – Emergency & Disaster Planning

Building Resilience for Organizations, Businesses, Communities & Individuals

What to Expect

Participants will have the opportunity to:
  • Create a “Holistic Climate Change Adaption & Response Plan” specific to your family, community, business, farm or organization, one that is realistic about your current capacity, timelines, and budget.
  • Learn about innovative solutions in emergency/climate change adaption and regenerative design.
  • Learn how to best prepare for specific disasters such as fires, floods, droughts, heat and more.
  • Be immersed in a “mock-disaster scenario” in a safe container. This is a priceless activity in beginning to develop the mindset and skills to support your family and community in challenging situations. You will also learn how to design “mock-scenarios” to help train and prepare others.
  • Learn from several different instructors in their areas of expertise, such as: Chris Gilmour (Holistic Emergency Preparedness),  Starhawk (Wildfires & Trauma-Informed Response), Leila Darwish (Earth Repair & Community Response Organizing), and more.
Click Here for more info

This training is for:

  • Individuals concerned about the future who want to support their families and communities to be more resilient and better prepared for changing times.
  • People who work on farms, in eco-villages, or on land-based projects that know their organization needs to adapt quickly, and who want support catered to their unique needs.
  • Business owners and not-for-profit organizations wanting to ensure their business/organization are resilient if a disaster strikes.
  • Urban, rural, and community planners who have a responsibility to look after others and design more resilient and regenerative systems and infrastructure that are ready for the challenges ahead.

 Planning for emergencies and disasters is an integral part of regenerative design.

Regardless of whether you own land or rent, live in an urban or rural area, are old or young, this course will give you the frameworks and tools you need to better prepare for our changing climate and world.

Class 2 – Preparing for Disasters

CANCLED

Mutual Aid, Community Response & Recovery for Climae Disasters

In this course, we take the reality and urgency of the climate crisis head-on. We focus on tools and strategies to prepare ourselves, take care of each other and the land, and create beautiful, fierce, and resilient lifelines through the coming fires, floods, heat waves, and storms. Together we can work to build our skills, create collective strategies for climate resilience and survival, and mobilize courageous and compassionate community disaster response and recovery efforts rooted in justice, mutual aid, and collective care.

  • Session 1 – Personal Preparedness & Hazards:
    • Personal emergency preparedness & planning.
    • Hazards 101: extreme heat, wildfire, drought, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes & pandemics.
  • Session 2 – Community Preparedness & Tools for Climate Resilience:
    • Disproportionate impacts, equity and access in disasters.
    • Collective strategies for climate resilience and disaster response.
    • Building coalitions and working with emergency management agencies and disaster NGOs.
  • Sessions 3 & 4 – Disaster Response: Evacuation planning and support
    • Emergency communications. Sheltering.
    • Emergency food response & feeding community.
    • Animals & disaster. Trauma and healing support for disaster survivors and responders.
  • Sessions 5 & 6 – Equitable Recovery
    • Introduction to equitable recovery and disaster justice.
    • Community organizing for mutual aid & community recovery.
    • Post-disaster clean-up.
    • Resilience & recovery centers. Managing donations.
    • Housing & rebuilds. Post-disaster bioremediation & environmental justice
    • Much more.

Class 3 – Bioremediation & Earth Repair

Learn to work with our plant, fungal, and bacterial allies to detoxify and heal the earth. This class will introduce you to a dynamic and diverse toolkit of ecological approaches for cleaning up and regenerating toxic soil and water.

  • Session 1 – Bioremediation Overview & Microbial Remediation: Definition and overview of bioremediation. Site assessment and soil testing. Contaminants 101. Introduction to microbial remediation and key microbial remediation tools (thermophyllic compost, actively aerated compost tea, vermiculture, biochar, EM and IMOs).
  • Session 2 – Phytoremediation: Introduction to phytoremediation and working with plants for heavy metal accumulation, chemical breakdown, and phytofiltration.
  • Session 3 – Mycoremediation: Introduction to mycoremediation and working with fungi for chemical breakdown, mycofiltration, and mycorenewal.
  • Session 4 – Bioremediation & Disasters: Wildfires: Bioremediation responses for post-wildfire contamination.
  • Session 5 – Community Bioremediation Projects: Tips for designing successful bioremediation projects.
  • Session 6 –  Responding to Oil Spills & Self-Care for Bioremediators and Frontline Communities: Oil spill behavior & conventional clean-up. Bioremediation tools for oil spill response.  Self-Care & Community Care – working with plants and fungi for self-care, health, and resilience in toxic environments.
    Click Here for more info

    MEET Your Teachers

    Leila Darwish (she/her) is a community organizer and disaster response and recovery worker with a deep commitment to supporting communities on the frontlines of climate change and disaster. Leila has worked in emergency management in the United States and Canada for various government agencies and disaster non-profits, responding to major storms, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She is especially passionate about accessible and inclusive disaster response and recovery, mutual aid, climate resilience, food security, and post-disaster bioremediation and ecological restoration.

    In addition to her disaster response and recovery work, Leila has taught bioremediation and oil spill response courses in communities across North America for over a decade. Leila is the author of, “Earth Repair: A Grassroots Guide to Healing Toxic and Damaged Landscapes“(New Society Publishers: print, ebook, audiobook). She has worked as a community organizer for environmental justice organizations across Canada and the USA on a variety of climate justice and watershed protection campaigns We are proud to call Leila a graduate of Earth Activist Training’s Permaculture Design Certificate course and teaches Bioremediation & Earth Repair

    Chris Gilmour (he/him) teaches Emergency & Disaster Planning. Chris is a student and teacher of ecology, survival, self-reliance, and the relationship between Nature and the human potential. Chris learned permaculture to grow his own food, herbal medicine, and remote back-country first aid. In partnership with his wife, Laura, they built a modern day homestead, and helped create a nonprofit organization that helps kids and families reconnect with the land. He has:

    • Helped build several organizations and businesses from the ground up.
    • Taught for colleges, public and private schools and designed curriculum at all levels.
    • Consulted in emergency preparedness with large and small businesses, governments, farms and camps.
    • Provided training and mentoring in ecology, nature awareness, leadership skills and self-reliance though his business Chris Outdoors.

    His offerings bridge a deep understanding of ecology, community and culture with emergency preparedness, holistic business practices and healthy human development.

    WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

    COURSE INFORMATION

    • Location: Virtual
    • Dates:
    • Weekly 2-hour live sessions with recorded supporting material.
    • All live session are recorded and closed captioned.
    • Access to resources, documentation, and recorded class content accessible via virtual classroom.
    • Special rate for groups and organizations.
    Register Now

    Full Certificate

    • Sliding Scale tuition: $800-$1050
    • Payment plans: $100 at registration with 7 monthly payments of $100
    • Alumni tuition: $300 to retake this course
    • All amounts are in US dollars

    Individual Class

    • Early Bird tuition: $280 /Module
    • Class tuition: $300-$350
    • Payment plans: $100 at registration with 2 monthly payments of $100
    • Alumni tuition: $100 to retake a module
    • All amounts are in US dollars

    Scholarships & Discounts

    We are dedicated to making our courses as accessible as possible by offering:

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      What Comes Next?

      Are you ready for the next step of your learning journey?

      Your Learning Journey

      Regenerative Land Management (RLM) is a multi-year, advanced permaculture diploma program designed to further your permaculture practice and provide the deep, comprehensive training needed to apply regenerative skills in your life!

      Go beyond a basic PDC with our Advanced Permaculture course. This year-long course, taught in four modules, covers key design topics:

      OUR NETWORK

      A core component of this course – and every Earth Activist Training course – is our private forum: Earth Activist Training Online network. This platform is where you will find course resources, your homework, and a network to connect with classmates and other Earth Activist students.

      Recordings of each class will be available to you as a resource. You will have access to the course for a year after the course ends should you want to deepen your understanding of the material.

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