Hostile Environment Safety Awareness Training

"The Objective Travel 5-Day HEST course offers good preparation for working in crisis areas or in critical situations.
 
- the week is packed with content.
- very good mixture of practice/theory and discussion rounds,
- Repetition of the practical parts in reasonable doses,
- Team of speakers is top-class with alot of experience,
- Communication and questions possible at any time, great course atmosphere,
- the group with 12 (international) participants also enables a good exchange,
- Surroundings and accommodation at the Chateau is a lovely setting.

'The training session, led by Charlie was well presented and clearly delivered, it was full of practical tips and didn’t pull the punches on the ‘worst case’ scenarios, whilst remaining very grounded.

I would highly recommend this as an introduction to travel safety for novices or a refresher for seasoned travellers too .'

'Really enjoyed it, very informative but never felt overloaded and most of all fun'.

'Excellent, brilliant hospitality and food'.

'Good pace to the lessons and the discussions over dinner were great and were ideal for the emotional trauma chat'.

'Great explanations excellent reenactments, delicious food'.

Thank you for having me at the EBU seminar "Hostile Environment Safety" last week!

The week was extraordinary! What lay not only at the scene - no question Schloss Hexenagger is a show in itself - but above all to the trainer: Inside! So honestly true, so pleasant, focused and professionally competent trainers: Inside I have seldom experienced. Hats off!

It was also a lively exchange among the students. They were colleagues: Inside from Finland, Norway, USA, Netherlands and Germany. Each was able to bring in his experiences and country-specific procedures and we were able to discuss them. I think there is added value for everyone.

So thank you again that I was able to participate in this seminar through the BR - it was very worthwhile and I can recommend it 100%. I now feel much more secure when it comes to my assignments for the BR, whether at home or abroad.

"Charlie and the team at Objective Travel Safety tailored a one day training event for myself and my partner ahead of our cycle adventure from Scotland to South Africa. Having spoken to many different companies, this was the first organisation who were able to offer a bespoke day which focused exactly on the countries we will be visiting, and the dangers we may encounter as cyclists".

"Charlie and the team at Objective Travel Safety tailored a one day training event for myself and my partner ahead of our cycle adventure from Scotland to Cape Wrath. Having spoken to many different companies, this was the first organisation who were able to offer a bespoke day which focused exactly on the countries we will be visiting, and the dangers we may encounter as cyclists.

Being just the two of us, we didn't have the same budget that a lot of corporate companies who elist these kinds of services do, but we managed to agree a workable solution with the team at Objective Travel.

The day itself was fantastic. We learnt an incredible amount in just a few hours, and feel much more prepared for our trip. Not only do we feel more comfortable with dangers we had concerns about, but Charlie opened our eyes to things we hadn't even thought about. We particularly enjoyed the role play, having the opportunity to test our learning first hand.

Couldn't recommend Objective Travel Safety more highly".

Charlie McGrath and the team at Objective Travel Safety have provided a range of excellent training programmes for Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC globally over the past four years, covering personal travel safety and security for employees, event security, and travel and security advice for female travellers.  Annual training has been delivered through face-to-face (in-person) workshops (both half-day and-full day) at our offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai.

As well as through webinars and online training to our 40+ offices in 25 countries. We very much look forward to further developing our training programme with Charlie and his team this year.

I wanted to feed back that Tatty LOVED the course. She went along in a slightly eyes-rolled, “do I have to do this” sort of mentality… and came back raving and saying how INCREDIBLY useful it was and how everyone should do it. She said how interesting your insights were and what an interesting set of experiences you had had! Given her particular speciality is setting off to climb a mountain in a T shirt and refusing to take advice on warm clothing (or waterproof clothing) EVER I am particularly grateful how struck she was by the advice on hypothermia!!

She is also v proud of her water bottle!

Thank you so much again!

Hi Charlie, Hope you're well. I wrote you, because I wanna to THANK YOU for everything you learnt me and of the EBU HEST course yours colleagues also. I was filming in Cairo from 28 of january to 4 of february and Im still alive because i follow almost everything I learnt in HEST. It was maybe the most heaviest filming that I came thru, we were in the middle of shooting, we were kidnapped, detained and many other "happy" things. THANK YOU Charlie for your training.
Thank you Objective!

Petr Svidenský, Czech television

We arranged an online personal safety training course for all our employees to participate in and it completely exceeded our expectations. 

Objective were able to tailor the training to destinations, that as an organisation, we are more likely to travel to and this was so done so in great depth and the information was relevant and inspiring. 

At every stage of the training, Charlie engaged each employee with thought provoking scenarios or questions. The session itself was very interesting.

Beforehand, we spoke regularly with Objective and through the expertise of Charlie we have been able to make more use of the extras which come with our insurance policy, as well as make adaptations to internal policies, processes and documents. Charlie really knows his stuff and it showed.  

"The training course delivered by Charlie was tailored around our needs, very informative and interesting. Our team travel all over the world and have a wealth of experience for over 20 years, but each one of them picked up lots of useful information that they are able to take with them in the future to keep them safe and aware. We were impressed how well the course was laid out we have recommended Objective to a local company that we work with. Our appreciation is given in putting the course on for us."

'A well organised, thought out Hostile Environment Safety training course structure, clear on practical tips and a good mix of theory and practical exercises throughout the two days.'

'I really enjoyed the 2 day HEST course and learnt a lot from it, thank you very much.'

'Loved every second of it, one of the most rewarding things I’ve done, great fun and great hospitality too.'

'Loved the enthusiasm of the instructors, Brilliant training course!'

I just wanted to drop you an email on behalf of the University of Lincoln, International Office to thank you for your time today. The training was incredibly interesting and helpful, to both those who travel and to those of us supporting them back from campus.

I have a personal interest in things like disaster management and major events like terrorist attacks, natural disasters etc so found it insightful to learn from someone as knowledgeable as yourself. 

"Charlie is a great crisis management trainer. He was very easy to work with on planning the trainings and super accommodating. He was able to get my teams to take into consideration factors in a crisis they wouldn’t normally think of.

My favorite part of the trainings was how Charlie worked to get everyone on the team involved. He also did his research when thinking of scenarios that could plausibly happen to my organization.

I highly recommend Charlie and the team at Objective Travel Safety."

"Ideal balance between intensive knowledge and relaxed hospitaility and great rural venue"

"Charlie and Grant were extremely knowledgeable and very concise training. Amazing food and brilliant hosts, thank you!"

"Very engaging, amazing hospitality (some of the best I come across!) and the teaching was informative and engaging"

"Laid back and relaxed mixed with high drama at times, perfect! Love the style, pace and the catering!"

The Hostile Environment Safety Training (HEST) at our premises in Riga, Latvia was excellent, students particulary appreciated incorporation of real-life scenarios and practical exercises throughout the sessions. It made training engaging and gave us hands-on experience that will be beneficial in real-world situations. It's evident that instructors have practical experience and were able to answer our questions and share their expertise and knowledge.

We have gained valuable knowledge and also have added hardware items for our missions based on information provided from instructors to enhance safety of our employees during missions.

Edge Autonomy, Riga, Latvia

On behalf of the University of Cambridge and our International Recruitment Team, may I pass on my thanks to you and Charlie for the great Travel Safety training session that you organised for us last week.

It was informative whilst being interesting and there were many points to discuss and consider taking forward.