Saving lives: ‘Disaster response plan formulated’

Rescue 1122 is working to build socially responsible and resilient communities in the province through CBDRM.

LAHORE:

Rescue 1122 has formulated a programme for the prevention of emergencies at community-level in coordination with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the National Institute for Disaster Management (NIDM), Rescue 1122 Director General Dr Rizwan Naseer said on Sunday.

He was speaking at the closing ceremony of a week-long training workshop at the Punjab Emergency Services Academy.

“Rescue 1122 is working to build socially responsible and resilient communities in the province through Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs),” he said.



He said that the programme aimed at reducing vulnerabilities and strengthening people’s capacity to enhance their hazard identification skills, assessment, learning and implementation of early warning systems, and to cope with various disaster risks at community level.

“Direct involvement of the community members in undertaking local level risk reduction measurements is integral for the establishment of safer communities,” Naseer said.

He said the core objective of the training was to initiate, formalise and develop community emergency response teams to ensure that a trained human resource was available to mitigate disasters.

Naseer said that Rescue 1122 and the NDMA planned to implement the programme at grassroots level so that communities in the Punjab might play an active role during disasters.

He added that the training dealt with risk and hazard assessment, vulnerability assessment and capacity development; formation of disaster risk management plans at the community level, community based multi-hazard early warning and dissemination mechanisms, school evacuation plans and a community evacuation plan.

Naseer urged Rescue safety officers to transfer these skills at the community level to raise awareness on engagement.

The training session had been organised by NDMA and NIDM representatives including Brig (retd) Sajid Naeem; Capt (retd) Asif Iqbal and NIDM Capacity Building specialists Waseem Ahmed and Head of Community Safety Wing Roqiya Bano Javed.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2015.