SANGHAR: Two projects aimed at reducing risks of natural disasters were laun­ched in Sanghar and Mithi districts at a ceremony held in the Sanghar deputy commissioner’s office on Tuesday.

The projects ‘community-based disaster risk management’ and ‘school safety programme’ were launched by the World Food Programme (WFP) and Focus Humanita­rian Assistance-Pakistan in collaboration with the provincial and district disaster management authorities.

The projects will focus two union councils of Sanghar district — Bilwal Hingorjo and Kamil Hingorjo — falling within Khipro taluka.

The WFP school safety programme will benefit as many as 20,000 students, teachers, school safety committees, community members, trainers, and local and district government officials.

The CBDRM project will benefit over 9,500 residents in the six selected districts, including Sanghar and Tharparkar. The programme is generously funded by Royal Norwegian Embassy in Islamabad.

Speaking at the launch, Irfan Malik, head of programme’s WFP provincial office in Sindh, said: “Pakis­tan has suffered from many natural disasters in the recent past, including a major earthquake in 2005 and devastating flooding in 2010. These natural calamities have caused loss of many human lives and also badly affected the livelihoods of local population. These losses could have been minimised if the communities were aware and better equipped with disaster preparedness and response planning strategies.”

He also said: “To minimise losses to the human lives in case any natural disaster hits the country, the WFP is expanding its specially designed CBDRM and School Safety projects in Pakistan to additional six hazard prone districts across Pakistan.”

The launching ceremony was attended by Sindh PDMA Operations Director Fayaz Shah, Sanghar DC Omer Farooq Bullo, Royal Norwe­gian Embassy programme adviser Nufil Nasir, representatives of the district disaster management authorities, health and education departments, international NGOs and the UN.

The projects will first be rolled out in Sindh, with more than 6,500 beneficiaries from 40 schools and 40 localities. The WFP will provide safety kits, search and rescue kits, first aid kits, material for information, education and communication, including a students’ learning booklet, a teachers’ guidebook and flip charts of major hazards, to all selected schools and local communities to create awareness on disaster preparedness and response.

Published in Dawn December 7th, 2016