2.2.6 Estonia Introduction Two leaders from volunteer organisations and three authorities replied to the questionnaire, and one of the authorities which work closely with volunteers participated in an in-depth interview. The volunteer organisations represent volunteer fire brigades and the Estonian Rescue Association. Both volunteer organisations work at the national and municipal level. The authorities represent state and regional levels and are from the rescue and emergency services, the police and the Border Guard. Both volunteer respondents indicated that they have an umbrella organisation. All three of the authorities know that the volunteers with whom they cooperate have umbrella organisations which are for volunteer rescuers, maritime rescuers and assistant police officers. One of our best practices is the existence of an umbrella organisation for volunteer rescuers. Authority.
The volunteer organisations that contributed to the project have an average of 1 541 volunteers involved in civil protection tasks. One of the organisations has approximately twenty-five volunteers, but the other more than 3 000.
The prevalence of cooperation and contracts In the questionnaire one volunteer leader rated their relationship with the authorities as good, while the other volunteer leader rated the relationship as quite bad. Correspondingly, all three authorities rated the relationship with volunteer organisations as very good or good. We have frequent, daily communication with volunteers. Authority.
Both volunteer organisations cooperate with the rescue and emergency services. All three authorities indicated that they cooperate with volunteers or their organisations. Two of them cooperate with volunteer fire brigades or contract fire brigades; one of the authorities cooperates with the Sea Rescue Society and the Rescue Dogs and the other one cooperates with different NGOs. 114
