RCC Mayor stresses for institutional capacity for disaster management

BSS, Rangpur :
Mayor of Rangpur City Corporation (RCC) and valiant freedom fighter Alhaj Sharfuddin Ahmed Jhantu has stressed for institutional capacity building for conducting emergency search and rescue operations in educational institutions during and after natural disasters.
He was addressing concluding ceremony of a 3-day training course organised last week by Rangpur unit of Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) on ‘Vulnerable Capacity Assessment (VCA)’ of the urban educational institutions, a press release said here today.
Thirty participants including two teachers and one student from each of the ten urban secondary schools under Disaster Preparedness for Safer School (DPSS) Project took part in the training course.
The American Red Cross funded the training course with technical assistances of National Society for Earthquake Technology of Nepal under management of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent.
The course aimed at assessing capacity building activities on disaster risk management in educational institutions for conducting emergency search and rescue operations with necessary techniques, primary aids, tools and transportations of injured people etc.
District Education Officer Shafikul Islam and Assistant Director of BDRCS and Project Coordinator Mizanur Rahman attended the ceremony as the special guests with Rangpur unit Secretary of BDRCS Shah Mohammad Nabi Ullah Panna in the chair.
Technical Officer of the Disaster Risk management Division of BDRCS Kamrul Islam conducted the training course as the main resource person while Assistant Programme Officer of Rangpur unit of DPSS Project Mofizur Rahman Nayan moderated it.
Rangpur Unit Level Officer of BDRCS Saiful Islam, Programme Officer of its Community Development Initiative Programme Rezwanul Karim and volunteers of Rangpur Unit Disaster Response Team were present.
The speakers narrated the major incidents of natural disasters occurred in recent times and comprehensive disaster risk reduction activities being conducted by BDRCS under its various projects throughout the country.
They also described objectives of the training course organised under the Red-crescent co-education curriculum in 50 urban schools including 25 each in Dhaka and Rangpur cities under DPSS project with assistances of the School Safety Clubs.
They asked the participants for properly utilizing acquired knowledge from the training course on management of natural disasters including earthquake and disseminating those among the other students, teachers, community members and guardians.