Haabersti is home to more than 52,000 people across twelve neighbourhoods. From a crisis preparedness perspective, this means a wide range of living environments, each with its own vulnerabilities. Within the same district, there are both vulnerabilities and valuable resources that may prove essential during a crisis. The question is whether we are aware of them before a crisis strikes.

Unfortunately, we cannot prevent every crisis, but we can reduce the likelihood of a difficult situation escalating into a disaster. Having emergency supplies or a single crisis plan is not enough. Genuine preparedness depends on whether contingency arrangements are in place, whether people know how to use them, whether key contacts have been established and whether different stakeholders are accustomed to working together. Effective crisis preparedness requires information, skills and support to be connected, alongside a willingness to think things through before a crisis occurs.

It is particularly important to consider what cooperation means at the local level. Take an apartment building, for example: crisis preparedness does not end at your own front door. If communications fail, the water supply is disrupted or residents need to evacuate the building at short notice, questions quickly arise that cannot be answered by individual emergency supplies alone. Such situations call for solutions at the level of the apartment owners’ association. It is essential to understand what responsibilities fall to the association and what individual apartment owners must manage themselves. Neither communities nor apartment owners’ associations can replace the state or emergency services. However, when a crisis begins, local residents are already on the ground and know their surroundings better than anyone else.

There was no shortage of humour in Nõmme, either. One of the more unexpected questions was even put to Tallinn’s Deputy Mayor, who attended one of the training sessions. KRAKO Project Manager Hannes Nagel answers five of the questions raised.

Who will be responsible for Nõmme’s volunteers once the KRAKO training programme has ended?

“This is a particularly important question, because establishing a volunteer network and keeping it running are two rather different undertakings. The Crisis Research Centre’s role in Nõmme was to bring together people willing to contribute, equip them with essential knowledge and skills, and lay the groundwork for future cooperation. From this point onwards, responsibility for coordinating and managing Nõmme’s crisis network passes to the City of Tallinn, through the Tallinn Municipal Police Department (MUPO). This means that maintaining contact with volunteers, potentially involving them in exercises and clarifying their responsibilities will now fall to the city.

We certainly hope that this will amount to rather more than simply having a list of 25 names somewhere. Keeping volunteers engaged and ready to contribute requires regular communication, a clear understanding of when their help might be needed, and opportunities to practise working together. Without this, even the most motivated people may gradually lose interest. Nõmme now has a promising starting point. The ball is firmly in Tallinn’s court.”

What role does the Crisis Research Centre itself play in Nõmme’s crisis network?

“Our role in this project is perhaps best described as providing foundational knowledge, initiating cooperation within the groups and creating the conditions needed for that cooperation to develop. Over recent years, the Crisis Research Centre has been developing a new methodology to help local people bring together their knowledge, skills and experience, and learn how to put them to use for the benefit of their communities. We do not simply gather people in a room and assume that a network will somehow emerge. Instead, we deliberately create opportunities for people to get to know one another, discover shared interests, recognise each other’s strengths and understand the circumstances in which they might be able to work together. In Nõmme, both groups demonstrated a genuine willingness to do precisely that.

Another important aspect of the Crisis Research Centre’s work is bringing practical experience and academic research together. Through KRAKO, we can gain a better understanding of how local networks take shape, what obstacles they encounter and what is needed for cooperation between volunteers and local authorities to work beyond the training environment. We are not there to replace the local authority or take over its crisis management responsibilities. We can help establish the foundations for effective cooperation, but maintaining and developing that cooperation must become part of the City of Tallinn’s own arrangements. This division of responsibilities allows our development work to deliver value well beyond the lifetime of the project.”

As part of the project, the Crisis Research Centre is training at least 20 people in Nõmme who will strengthen the community-based crisis network being developed in western Tallinn. The network will be coordinated by the City of Tallinn through the Tallinn Municipal Police Department.

“As this is the first time we have implemented a project in Nõmme City District, we are particularly pleased that the second group also developed strong synergy and interaction between participants from the very beginning. This is one of the foundations of the long-term sustainability of our projects. Community-based civil protection only makes sense if people themselves are willing to continue developing both the field and the relationships created through it,” said Hannes Nagel, KRAKO Project Manager.

“Today’s training day focuses specifically on practical community and civil protection first aid. We are giving participants practical, genuinely useful skills they can rely on both in everyday situations and in a crisis. We are not in the business of box-ticking, the point is to teach people things they actually need when it matters,” Nagel added.

The KRAKO training programme is not focused solely on individual preparedness. Its aim is to bring together people who live and work in the area and who are both interested in and willing to support their community during a crisis, while helping to develop a functioning local network of contacts and cooperation.

“Crisis preparedness is not simply about having the necessary supplies at home and knowing what to do yourself. It is just as important to know who is around you, what knowledge and skills they have, and who you can work with when needed. Once a crisis has begun, it is too late to start exchanging phone numbers and looking for people who might be willing to help,” said KRAKO Project Lead Hannes Nagel.

During the training day, participants explored the principles of crisis preparedness and civil protection, the role of communities during emergencies, and the ways in which local residents can help identify people who may need assistance, share information and support their neighbourhoods. The practical first aid component was delivered by paramedic Andrus Lehtmets. The KRAKO programme combines local-level crisis preparedness, community cooperation and practical skills.

Training is also creating new connections for future cooperation

Feedback from the first Mustamäe training session clearly demonstrated why bringing people together is such an important part of the KRAKO project. When participants were asked, “How many new people did you meet during the training whom you could contact or work with in the future on crisis preparedness and community safety?”, nearly 92% said they had made at least one new contact. Around one third of participants identified two or three people with whom they could potentially cooperate in the future.

“For us, this is a very important outcome. A crisis network cannot simply be created as a list of names or a diagram. It has to be built around people who have actually met, spoken to one another and know whom they can turn to when needed. In that sense, the training is only the starting point. Our aim is for these new connections to gradually develop into a functioning local crisis network in Mustamäe,” said Nagel.

The strength of local residents lies precisely in their local knowledge. They know their own building, street and neighbourhood, are able to identify people and situations that cannot be understood in the same level of detail centrally, and can help share information, connect people and identify residents who may need additional support during a crisis. The KRAKO crisis network aims to strengthen local-level crisis management capacity across Tallinn’s city districts.

Nõmme starts from a different position when preparing for crises than, for example, Haabersti or Mustamäe. Although the district also has apartment buildings, it is characterised by extensive areas of detached and private houses and a garden-city-style spatial structure. According to Tallinn’s data, Nõmme has considerably more single-family homes than apartment buildings. This means that crisis preparedness must also take into account people who are more dispersed across the area, different types of buildings, local roads and the needs of a wide variety of households.

“While Nõmme does have larger apartment buildings, it is predominantly an area of detached houses, which creates its own challenges for crisis preparedness. In a large apartment building, it may be possible to reach dozens of people through a single stairwell, whereas in areas of detached houses, people and resources are more dispersed. It is precisely in such situations that local people who know their street and neighbourhood become valuable: they can help identify needs, relay information and support the municipality’s activities,” said Anne-May Nagel, co-founder and researcher at the Crisis Research Centre.

During the training day, the Nõmme District Government introduced the principles of crisis preparedness at city and district level, as well as its expectations for the development of the local crisis network. The Crisis Research Centre addressed the role of communities in civil protection and covered the basic knowledge required in this area, while paramedic Andrus Lehtmets focused on practical first aid. These three perspectives – local government arrangements, the capacity of communities to act, and practical skills at individual level – also form a key part of the KRAKO training programme.

Led by the Crisis Research Centre, the pilot project is building a network of local residents in western Tallinn to strengthen community crisis preparedness. Training sessions in Haabersti, Mustamäe and Nõmme aim to improve participants’ personal preparedness as well as their ability to assist others and support their communities and city districts.

“Additional responsibilities assigned to local authorities have not always been matched by sufficient resources. When a crisis strikes, staff shortages directly affect their ability to assist residents. This makes it essential to establish connections with local people who have the skills and willingness to support their communities before a crisis occurs,” said Hannes Nagel, KRAKO Project Lead.

The training covered the principles of crisis preparedness and the state of civil protection in Estonia. It also presented findings from the Crisis Research Centre’s 2024 survey on crisis preparedness in Väike-Õismäe. Participants discussed how local residents’ knowledge and skills could be put to use and what role each person could play in supporting their neighbourhood.

🟠 More information and registration on the City of Tallinn crisis preparedness website.

KRAKO project activities are implemented by the Crisis Research Centre in cooperation with the City of Tallinn. The project is funded by the City of Tallinn and the Tallinn Municipal Police Department.

The aim of the new crisis network is to bring together people who wish to contribute voluntarily to crisis preparedness and emergency response in their local area. The training will introduce the initial concept behind the network, the principles of crisis preparedness in Tallinn and Nõmme, and provide an overview of the current state of civil protection in Estonia. We will also discuss the role each person can play in supporting their community.

The programme will include practical first aid training led by paramedic Andrus Lehtmets. The autumn training sessions will take place in Nõmme at weekends. All training days will cover the same content, and participants may choose one date.

The training sessions will take place in Nõmme on the following weekend dates:

• September 20, 2026, 10.00–18.00, register HERE;
• October 18, 2026, 10.00–18.00, register HERE.

The training sessions will take place in Mustamäe on the following weekend dates:

• October 10, 2026, 10.00–18.00, registration is CLOSED;
• November 8, 2026, 10.00–18.00, register HERE;
• November 22, 2026, 10.00–18.00, register HERE.