‘A Safer Tomorrow Project’ Launches in Chitral, Northern Pakistan
CHITRAL: A coordination meeting of Hashoo Foundation with the line departments regarding ‘A Safer Tomorrow—Disaster Preparedness in School’ project was held on in DCO office Chitral Rehmatullah Wazir, DCO, in the chair. Other participants included all the heads of the line departments, teachers and staff of the project were also present on the occasion.
Sultan Mehmood, Regional Program Manager (RPM) Hashoo Foundation and Project Manager of ‘A Safer Tomorrow’, introduced and explained the objective of the project in great detail. He apprised the forum that ‘A Safer Tomorrow—Disaster Preparedness in School’ is being funded by DIPECHO and implemented by HOPE’87 and Hashoo Foundation. The project is being implemented in 20 schools of three Union Councils in Southern Chitral.
He also informed the meeting that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has signed between Elementary and Secondary Education Department and HOPE’87 and Hashoo Foundation, which is a milestone in involving the Education Department in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in the schools of the region.
The overarching objective of the project is to provide safety to school students, villagers and general community in times of natural disasters such as earthquake, flash flood and land sliding etc.
The activities of the project comprise a series of Integrated Community Based Risk Reduction (ICBRR) and Hazard Vulnerability, Capacity and Risk Assessment (HVCRA) trainings to be imparted to HF Volunteers, Education Department, Civil Defense Staff, teachers, students and community representatives.
The following bullet points explain some features of the project:
It will provide training to teachers and students in 20 selected schools who will ultimately work as peer educator and carry the message to wider communities.
HF Volunteers, Education and Civil Defense Staff and project staff will be trained in Integrated Community Based Risk Reduction (ICBRR) and Hazard Vulnerability Capacity and Risk Assessment (HVCRA).
The Head Master and three other teachers from each school will be selected as focal teachers and they will act as facilitators of school safety and they will undergo DRR training in about eight sessions along with HF Volunteers. These teachers will take the lead to prepare School Action Plan (SAP) with the help of project staff. They will also be linked with HF Volunteers, Education and C&W Department and Disaster Management Authority (DMA) at the district level.
Three schools buildings, one in each Union Councils, will be retrofitted and made safe places for communities to be used as shelters in case of occurrence of any disaster in future.
Emergency kits, training materials, DRR and DP booklets CDS and other required materials will be distributed amongst students, teachers and volunteers. The participants suggested that the retrofitting work should be undertaken as early as possible keeping in view the harsh winter and limited working season of district Chitral.
EDO Education Chitral maintained that care must be taken for the fact that the study of students must not suffer for the activity. It would be advisable to design and initiate trainings and other voluntary activities for students at the week end as well as during summer and winter long holidays.
In his concluding remarks, Rehmatullah Wazir, DCO Chitral, thanked DIPECHO, HOPE’87 and Hashoo Foundation for initiating a worthwhile project for the safety of students and the general communities in Chitral, which is the least developed district of the country and is potentially exposed to natural disasters. He also hoped the project would go a long way in raising awareness and providing safe places for the students and general community in times of natural disasters.
He advised the project team to come out with concrete results by assuring standard implementing mechanism so that its objectives will be materialized and the benefits be maximized for the target communities.
G.H. Farooqi PO Box NO. 50 GPO Chitral OR Bank Islami Main Branch Chitral
Telephone No. 03337069572, 03469002167, 03159698446, 03025989602, 0943 3207373, 0943-316052 and 0943-414418
email: gulhamad@gmail.com