Since being founded in 2000, CHSE has brought together educators, practitioners, and students from a variety of backgrounds in a 100% volunteer-led and staffed effort to produce high level humanitarian and disaster response training simulations. CHSE is founded in experience-based learning and incorporates aspects of the US Government's HSEEP exercise format and NIMS Incident Command System, as well as international humanitarian standards. 

Our Mission

The primary goal of CHSE—docere volentes or "to prepare the willing"—is to offer students and practitioners of any experience level an opportunity to learn and engage skills relating to humanitarian aid, disaster response, conflict resolution, leadership, teamwork, and communication in austere or challenging environments. CHSE provides hands-on, scenario-based exercises that provide practical, engaging, and evidence-based training opportunities within a controlled and safe environment that encourages students to make mistakes, recover, learn, and try again. 

A common theme through the various CHSE training exercises is the idea that incorporating and practicing process skills—leadership, teamwork, communication, stress management and safety—are vital to carrying out emergency response operations, aid management, and any coordinated group effort. All CHSE trainings prepare participants to use these process skills and set the stage for further development and refining of task-based skills. Even participants that do no pursue disaster- or humanitarian-related fields of study will find their experience at any of the training exercises to be applicable to many aspects of life and career. CHSE's mission is to create global citizens with the skills and abilities to help in times of crisis both domestically and abroad. 

Some of CHSE's Exercise Learning Objectives: