Reporting From: South Africa

In Reporting From, we bring you insights from disaster experts who tell us what they see and hear while on the ground in disaster-affected areas across the world. For this installment, we spoke with Ian Scher, the CEO and founder of Rescue South Africa, an urban search and rescue organization that has partnered with USAID since 2000.

In 1999, a group of volunteer firefighters from South Africa deployed after an earthquake struck Izmit, Türkiye, thinking their skills in firefighting and vehicle extrication would equip them for such a complex response.

They quickly realized they were wrong.

It also made clear to the team that if a disaster of this magnitude happened in southern Africa, they wouldn’t be prepared. From this realization, and with some help from USAID, Rescue South Africa was born.

For more than two decades, Rescue South Africa has responded to disasters around the world as well as in South Africa. In 2014, Rescue South Africa saved a man who had fallen in Rustenburg Kloof in South Africa. Photo Rescue South Africa

The Beginnings

Ian Scher has served as a firefighter since 1979. In 2001, decades into his career, he and nine other senior officers, doctors, and businesspeople established Rescue South Africa.

“Our vision is to enable Africans to be good citizens of the world and empower them to offer humanitarian services worldwide,” Scher, now the organization’s CEO, explained.

Together with its elite urban search and rescue partners from Los Angeles County and Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, Virginia Task Force 1, USAID conducted an initial train-the-trainer course in South Africa in May of 2000 in partnership with Rescue South Africa. Photo: Rescue South Africa

After securing support from USAID in 2000, eight rescue technicians from USAID’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) teams were brought in to train an initial group of 26 South African senior emergency services instructors in a “train-the-trainer”-style course.

This first group has since gone on to train thousands of South Africans.

From the initial group of trainees, Rescue South Africa has continued its mission to build regional urban search and rescue (USAR) capacity, enabling emergency services organizations to quickly and effectively respond to disasters across Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Photos: Rescue South Africa

USAID Support

USAID’s support did not end after that first training course. In the following years, the agency continued to advise, equip, and train the organization’s emergency response specialists.

Rescue South Africa responded to Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019. Over the course of four days, the team moved 600 people to safety. Video: Rescue South Africa

USAID has also supported Rescue South Africa’s mission to build the emergency response capacity of first responders in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, and Zambia.

Over the years, they have responded to disasters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Algeria, Pakistan, Haiti, Japan, the Philippines, and Mozambique. Most recently, they deployed in March 2023 to areas of Malawi devastated by Tropical Cyclone Freddy to conduct rescue operations and relocate people to safer areas.

In 2011, Rescue South Africa responded to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. Photos: Rescue South Africa

Today, Rescue South Africa is an internationally recognized rescue team with more than 60 regular volunteer rescue practitioners who have assisted in disaster response efforts around the world. The team also manages a stock of 60 tons of rescue equipment — the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Additionally, the group has integrated itself into the South African disaster management landscape by supporting local emergency response departments and training new urban search and rescue specialists throughout the Southern Africa region.

With USAID support, Rescue South Africa has acquired the largest stock of rescue equipment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Photos: Rescue South Africa

Now, over 20 years since that first deployment to Türkiye, the success of Rescue South Africa serves as strong evidence that with a relatively small investment and technical guidance, a local organization can grow to have a lifesaving global impact.

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