Christian Aid, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has trained four communities on disaster risk reduction, to protect vulnerable population from the impact of climate change.
Bamidele Fagbite, the NGO’S Senior Programme Coordinator made this known at a three-day capacity training on disaster risk reduction and social protection on Thursday in Kafanchan, Kaduna state.
According to Fagbite, the training is necessary to strengthen coordination and communication of state, Local Emergency Management Committees and their communities for effective emergency response.
He said that training the primary actors of the vulnerable communities would place them at the heart of the solution.
“They can be able to come up with local innovations, in terms of identifying traditional early warning signals and also addressing them.
”We expect that after the training, participants will return to their communities to identify with those issues that are of high risk to them and put in place measures to militate against such disasters.
” We want to awaken their knowledge, understanding on realities of disaster and how to identify traditional early warning signals so as to manage those disasters,” he said.
The coordinator noted that the project was implemented in 16 rural locations across four Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Kaduna and Sokoto states.
He explained that the project Disaster Reduction and Social Safety was meant to save lives and protect the health and livelihoods of vulnerable people from the impact of climate related disasters.
He noted that the project was aimed at improving disaster preparedness, timeliness, quality of risk information and response action for multiple hazards.
He added that the project was funded by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department, jointly implemented by Cooperazione International and Christian Aid.
Mr Tabat Baba, Programmes Officer, disaster risk reduction said the timeliness was tied to the gaps identified from the previous phase of the project in Kaduna North, South and Chikun LGAs.
Baba said that the advocacy component of the project was to ensure that social security net would be created to support communities to recover from the impact of disaster.
“We have identified various risk in vulnerable communities for government to take responsibility, strengthen relief and rehabilitation,” he said.
The programme officer said that the communities include Kafanchan emirate, Maigizo, Biniki and Bandong communities in Kaura and Jamaa LGA.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that present at the training are fire service, State Emergency Management Agency, Red cross, traditional rulers, youths and persons with disabilities. (NAN)
