Hashoo
Foundation conducts meeting
Chitral -- an orientation meeting under “A safer tomorrow”
project was organized by Hashoo Foundation in the hall of Government
Centennial High School Chitral here on Sunday. The meeting was
presided over by the Principal of Govt Centenial High School Chitral
while Muhammad Ajmal Khan Advocate, a prominent social worker of
Chitral was the chief guest. The meeting was attended by a large
number of people from every walk of life including religious
scholars, lawyers, journalists
and key community leaders. Sultan Mehmood, Project Manager of “A
Safer Tomorrow” Project explained the aims and objectives of the
project. Elaborating the salient features of the project he said
that basic purpose of the project was to ensure disaster
preparedness in schools through different trainings and safety
measures and then take the message to wider communities through
school teachers, students and selected volunteers.
He told the audience that the project is currently being implemented
in 20 schools of 3 Union Councils of Chitral. So far 20 volunteers,
15 Education and Civil Defense staff and 15 Hashoo Foundation and
project staff have been trained in Integrated Community based Risk
Reduction in Chitral. The same beneficiaries with 80 teachers will
be trained in Hazard Vulnerability, Capacity and Risk Assessment in
a separate module of about 8 days in Islamabad.
The volunteers will act as focal persons in the respective villages
and will be linked with the Community Emergency Response Teams
(CERT) Search and Rescue Teams (SART) and Disaster Assessment and
Response Teams earlier established in the district.
The focal teachers with the help of project staff will take the lead
to prepare school action plans including the linkage with HF
volunteers, Education and C&W departments and disaster management
authorities at the district level. The disaster risk reduction and
disaster preparedness sessions will be held in schools and the
curriculum which has been approved by the training wing of the
provincial education department, will be taught in the selected
schools. One complete set of training set will be given to each
school and to the District Education department.
Apart from trainings, 3 schools one in each UC will be retrofitted
and made safe places for communities in case of any future
emergency. Non structural minor risk reduction measures will also be
introduced in selected schools.
The participants of the meeting appreciated the efforts of Hashoo
Foundation and hope’87 for initiating the project in Chitral that
has seen various disasters in the recent past and assured their all
out support to make the project a success. Earlier the first Area
opening meeting had taken place in Ayon on 20th of this month. -