Lone Worker Safety for Humanitarian & NGO Field Staff
Safety for field assessment, WASH engineers, and protection officers in austere settings. Protect your teams for £39.50 per user, per year — smartphone-only, zero hardware, deploy in under an hour.
The real risks Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) lone workers face
Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) staff regularly work alone — in the community, on client sites, or out of hours. These are the hazards your lone working policy must address.
Intentional Violence
Major attacks, kidnappings, or woundings during field assessments and aid distributions.
599 major attacks on aid workers were recorded in 2024.
Road Traffic Accidents
Road travel carries significant risk for field teams operating in austere or poorly maintained environments.
A landmark study of aid worker deaths (Nurthen & Jung, 2008) found motor vehicle accidents were the single largest cause over a 20-year period, 33% of deaths, ahead of violence. More recent research shows violence has since overtaken accidents as the leading cause, but road risk remains a serious and often under-addressed hazard for field teams.
Communications Blackouts
Sudden isolation in disaster zones due to power or network failure.
Blackouts defeat communication systems that depend on individual action.
Duty of Care for International Field Staff
Trustees and employers of humanitarian staff must take reasonable steps to protect them, including in overseas crisis zones, a duty reinforced by Dennis v NRC (2015), a Norwegian civil ruling that found an aid organisation grossly negligent for failing to adequately manage foreseeable security risks. In the UK, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 separately creates criminal liability for organisations whose gross management failures cause a death, including overseas. The Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) 2024 edition expects supportive management and staff safety to be verified as part of good organisational practice.
Explore the full UK compliance frameworkCharity Commission / FCDO
Trustees must take reasonable steps to protect staff and volunteers working in overseas crisis zones.
How The Sentry maps to Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) risks
Each Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) hazard below is met by a specific Sentry feature — not generic safety software, but protection built for the way your teams work.
Ambush or checkpoint
One-touch panic alarm
Austere site isolation
Live location sharing
Incident evidence
Automatic video capture
Built for the way Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) teams work
The whole platform deploys on the smartphones your Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) staff already carry — no devices to buy, charge, or replace.
Silent SOS alert
Covert alerting for high-tension security encounters.
Live GPS location
Standing team-wide map for real-time operational coordination.
Private incident reporting
Secure channel for safeguarding and security disclosures.
Every plan includes the full Sentry feature set
The same two-sided system — staff app plus manager portal — protects your Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) teams. No hardware, no IT integration, live in under an hour.
Home-screen widget SOS
Exclusive to The Sentry: fire the alarm, share your location, and start recording straight from a home-screen widget — one touch, without opening the app. In a real emergency, the extra steps simply aren’t there.
Loud or silent panic alarm
One alarm, two modes. Loud mode sounds an audible siren; silent mode is completely discreet for confrontational situations. Both instantly share live location with your managers and Nearby Team.
Automatic video capture
Recording starts the moment an alarm triggers. Unalterable footage is saved to the cloud audit trail, emailed as a view/download link, and kept on the handset. (Loud mode records video only; silent mode also captures audio.)
Lone Worker Timer
Session-based timed check-ins: set your own interval and the app prompts you to check in during a session. If a check-in is missed, help is escalated. Added specifically for the wider lone worker sector.
Fake phone call
Defuse a tense situation with a simulated incoming call that uses your phone’s native ringtone and generates a fresh caller number each time — so it appears entirely genuine.
Live location sharing (user-led)
Real-time GPS — but only during a work session you choose to start. The Sentry never tracks passively or automatically, so your personal time stays private. Privacy by design.
Private incident reporting
A confidential, whistleblowing-aligned channel to report harassment — with the option to submit anonymously. Once sent, no trace is left on the device: no email confirmation, nothing stored locally. Satisfies EHRC Step 4.
Friends & Family licences
Every staff member gets three free personal licences, so their family can use the same safety technology — entirely separate from the employer’s account.
Manager portal — included on every account
- Live dashboard of all active team sessions — worldwide map, unlimited users visible
- Configurable incident-report routing per user or branch, with read-receipt tracking
- Complete encrypted audit trail with unlimited history, plus PDF export of incident reports
- ERA 2025 compliance documentation pack and downloadable, timestamped audit trails
- Multi-branch / multi-site structuring on one account, and unlimited manager accounts
Why Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) teams trust The Sentry
A UK-built, self-funded platform with the evidence trail regulators and procurement teams expect.
Supports CHS Principles
Aligned with GISF Guidance
Disaster-Resilient Model
Unbeatable value. No lock-in.
Replaces expensive ARC-monitored apps with a peer-to-peer model suited to co-located field teams.
Common questions from Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) buyers
“We use satellite phones”
Satellite phones are expensive and often banned. The Sentry provides a smartphone layer for co-located teams.
“The reserve is too low”
Our £39.50/year pricing respects NGO budget constraints without sacrificing safety.
Humanitarian & Disaster-Relief (NGO) lone worker safety FAQ
Does it work offline?
The app stores alert metadata locally and resends the instant a signal is detected.
Is it GDPR compliant?
Yes. Data is encrypted with UK-based residency for sensitive incident logs.
Explore other industries
The Sentry protects lone workers across every UK sector.
Your people protected. Your business covered. Simple.
Get your team protected in under 60 minutes. No IT integration required.
No credit card required • Free 30-minute demo • Protect your team today