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GENEVA, March 29: The international Red Cross on Wednesday increased its aid appeal for victims of last year’s earthquake in Pakistan to help survivors rebuild their homes.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement that it had revised its emergency appeal from 152 million Swiss francs (117m euros, $98m) to 227 million Swiss francs for the recovery phase.
“Its essential that local populations spearhead the reconstruction effort,” said Azmat Ulla, the federations head of delegation in Pakistan.
“They are in the best position to know what they need and helping them to take the lead is a vital part of the healing process,” he added.
So far the agency has received 83 per cent of its original call for international aid after the disaster on Oct 8.
The move came as refugees from the South Asian earthquake prepare to leave their tent camps and return to the mountains and hills of Kashmir after winter.
The federation said more than one million people were expected to try to rebuild their lives and communities over the next three years with the help of the Pakistani Red Crescent.
“This is not only about enabling people to resume their normal lives,” said Khalid Kibriya, secretary general of the local Red Crescent.
SCHOOLS: The United Nations is launching a campaign to “disaster proof” schools to reduce the numbers of children crushed to death in earthquakes or washed away in floods, the head of its risk reduction agency said on Wednesday in Boon.
Reinforcing the buildings would have cost as little as a dollar a child, one aid agency said last year.
The new campaign by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction will also push governments to make lessons on natural hazards and how to reduce deaths and injury part of the school curriculum.
“This is very important ... We have two main objectives. One is to promote the safety of schools and other educational institutions and the second is to introduce risk reduction into the school curriculum,” Salvano Briceno, director of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said.
Disaster proofing is not expensive, he said. “There’s already a beautiful example in Nepal. It’s a matter of hundreds of dollars only to reinforce each school just by putting a couple of columns in key places. We don’t need to make big investments.”
He was speaking on the sidelines of the Third International Early Warning Conference in the German city of Bonn which wrapped up on Wednesday.
SUCCESS STORY: Aid agency ActionAid said it was also launching a project tomake schools safer and introduce disaster risk reduction into the curriculum. The programme will initially focus on Nepal, India, Malawi, Ghana, Kenya, Haiti and Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is often cited as an example of how inexpensive grass roots initiatives can save lives.
Bangladesh’s disaster management minister, Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf, told a meeting at the conference on Tuesday that all schools built since 2004 had been designed to double up as flood shelters. New schools are built from reinforced concrete and elevated from the ground.—Agencies
