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About This Course:

What is Resilience? Resilience is often perceived as an abstract term that varies in meaning for people from different fields and backgrounds. Nevertheless, it has been a “buzzword” in the discussion around crises and disasters in recent decades.

In this course, we will introduce structure into this confusion and provide clearer definitions for the intangible multidisciplinary and sometimes ambiguous term resilience.

Subsequently, this understanding will serve to improve the learners’ ability to manage crisis situations, as well as to help them plan and focus interventions and protective measures in the field of emergency preparedness and response.

At the individual level, this course will provide learners with personal tools and resources for better coping in various stressful situations.

Resilience is a capacity of society, with implications for day-to-day life as well as in crisis situations. The familiarity with the concept and its’ broad aspects, is an asset to any individual in the pragmatic applied sense, beyond the academic attainment.

This course will introduce the concept of resilience and its relevance in various arenas and times.

We will portray the impact of the disaster on individuals, families, communities, organizations, infrastructure and the interfaces between them.

We will introduce the role of media and social media in the emergency management lifecycle

You will learn how to measure resilience, how to use this assessment to guide you in building response plans for emergency situations.

What You’ll Learn:

What is resilience
What is the role of resilience in disaster situations
How can one improve resilience
Introduction to Coping
The BASIC PH model of coping
Continuities
Grief and bereavement
The effects of emergencies and disasters on individuals
Who is vulnerable – at-risk populations
Helping the helpers
Factors of Community Resilience
The role of media during disasters
Effective media communication during emergencies
CERTs – Community Emergency Response Teams

Meet Your Instructors:

Limor Aharonson-Daniel

Head, PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research, School of Public Health, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) at IsraelX Prof. Limor Aharonson-Daniel, VP for Global Engagement, is the founding director of the PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research at BGU. She is a Professor in the School of Public Health in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Limor is an international expert on injury epidemiology and played a significant role in the academization of the field of emergency preparedness and response and in the development of innovative approaches and tools for the study of emergency situations. Among these are the Barel body region by nature of injury diagnosis matrix, Multiple Injury Profiles and the Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measure (CCRAM).

Mooli Lahad

Professor of Psychology, Tel Hai Academic college at IsraelX Prof. Lahad is the founder and President of the Community Stress Prevention Center Kiryat-Shmona , and Professor of Psychology at Tel-Hai College ,Israel He is a Senior medical psychologist; Author and co-author of over 35 books and many articles on the topics of Communities under Stress, and Coping with Life threatening Situations. He is the developer of the Integrative Model of Resiliency BASIC –Ph,”Islands of resiliency” community recovery model and the See Far CBT psychotrauma treatment protocol.

Ruvie Rogel

PhD at IsraelX Dr. Rogel is a lecturer at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Rogel develops and facilitates workshops and programs in the field of personal, community and national resilience for the public and private sectors. He serves deputy to the CEO of the Community Stress Prevention Center Kiryat-Shmona , and Professor of Psychology at Tel-Hai College ,Israel

Dmitry Leykin

PhD at IsraelX Lecturer at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev and Head of Research at the Community Stress Prevention Center in Kiryat Shmona.

Michal Linder Zarankin

Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev at IsraelX Dr. Linder is a Research Fellow and a Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research focuses on inter/intra-organizational behavior before, during and after crises and disasters, with an emphasis on the range of managerial, group and community organizations' responses to emergencies. In addition to her research, Dr. Linder has taught various courses on emergency and disaster management in the U.S. at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Course Overview:

Have you ever wondered what viruses actually are?

Have you been curious about the ways they invade our bodies, attack our cells and make us sick? Come and learn what viruses are made of and understand the mechanisms of how they hijack and take over our cells.

There is no need for a background in science – just bring your curious mind!

Our bodies are made of cells, which are amazing molecular machines. So long as everything is in working order, we feel great. But surprisingly, these unbelievably tiny parasites made of Protein and Genes – viruses – can take over and cause serious damage to our bodies.

Step by step, this course will teach you how the cells of our bodies work to keep us healthy. We will then explore the vast kingdom of viruses; especially those that have caused epidemics like the flu, AIDS and Ebola. Finally, we will systematically review our immune system, how it identifies “the enemies,” and how it takes them out.

What You’ll Learn:

The makeup of cell structures (organelles) and their functions;
What happens to our body when it is infected by viruses;
How our Immune System operates to protect us;
The pros and cons of vaccination.

Meet Your Instructor:

Jonathan Gershoni

Prof. at Tel Aviv University Prof. Jonathan Gershoni, born in Israel, received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Post-doctoral training at Yale School of Medicine. For 30 years he has investigated the immune response towards viruses such as HIV, HCV and SARS CoV. He continues to develop novel methods for the computational characterization of the antibody composition in blood and applications towards new immuno-diagnostics and preventive vaccines. Prof. Gershoni has worked as a visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda MD and at Boston University - Department of Physics. He has repeatedly been awarded "Teacher of the Year" at Tel Aviv University and has served as the Director of the Israeli AIDS Task Force. Prof. Gershoni lives in Israel with his wife, three daughters and 10 grandchildren.