Training on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) for Emergency Management Team

 

Session wise activities

The 4^th batch of training on “DRR for emergency management teams” was organized in zone two of DNCC, Mirpur where officials from zone office and adjacent community people participated. At first Engr. Dr. Tariq Bin Yusuf delivered his welcome speech while he said since the zone level officials will be the member of zone disaster incident management team, it is necessary to build the basic understanding of DRR and the role and responsibility of DNCC in disaster response. He also explained the functional aspect of emergency warehouse with how these incident management teams will activate during an emergency. 

 

 Zonal Executive officer of Zone 2 was presented there and delivered his valuable speech and announce the opening of the day long training. In his speech, he said that the most devastating disaster for a city like Dhaka is Earthquake and most of us don’t know properly that how we should act during an earthquake. As a city authority, the Zone office officials have specific role in these kind of emergency management and it high time to get prepared for such mega disaster.  

 

 

Session 1:

After the inaugural session by Zonal Executive officer, main sessions of the training started. The first session was “understanding the concept of urban DRR and community base DRR” which was conducted by Mr. Ashfaqur Rahaman Asha, Senior Project Officer of SEEDS Asia. In this session participants gathered knowledge about basic terminologies of disasters such as Disaster, hazard, risk, vulnerability and Preparedness and prospects of various urban disasters in the context of Dhaka city.

 

Session 2:

Ms. Miharu SATO, the project coordinator of SEEDS Asia shared the experience of devastating of Kobe earthquake in 1995 and working experience on DRR community. From this, participants got an idea that what would be the condition right after an earthquake and what kind of challenge the general people and city official would face. She also explained why preparedness in community level is equally important aligned with Government. During the whole session, Mr. Ashfaque Rahman Asha was responsible to interpret the lecture of Ms. Miharu.

 

Session 3:

The basic rules and regulations of safe building construction is important to know for every individual, community and city officials as well. So the 4^th session was on “basics of safe building construction” conducted by Engr, Abul Kashem, deputy project director, of urban resilience project. He briefly discussed about the laws-acts related to building construction, process of getting approval of a building plan and components of building code. Participants found the session very useful and they also asked many question to Mr. Kashem.

At the end of this session, Mr. Kashem invited Mr. Mamunur Rashid, Administrative Officer of Zone 2, has recently attend a training in Delhi on DRR to share his learning from Delhi. Mr. Mamunur Rashid gave a short presentation and said he found his interest working in DRR and he will keep learning and working in future.

 

Session 4 (games):

Since Dhaka city haven’t experienced any mega earthquake, most of the people don’t have proper knowledge on how they should response during an earthquake. So a shakeout drill was organized in this session where all the participants took part very actively. With the whistle ringing, they were given two minutes to perform how they would response to protect themselves during earthquake. Most of the participants started running here and there and tried to go out of the building. After two minutes instructors sorted out their mistakes and described the drop-cover-hold concept. They also explained that as long as we feel the shake, we should keep ourselves in house and after stopping the shake we should evacuate to nearest open/safe place.

Instructors also discussed about other personal protection tips for disaster such as family plan, selection of evacuation space, emergency kit preparation, basic first aid and firefighting etc. Participants took part in another game on emergency bag preparation. The purpose of these game was to make the participants think about the situation and necessities after a disaster. A range of household and emergency materials were kept in front of them and they were asked to pick stuffs they think are required in emergency and after that they explained what stuffs and why they put those in their emergency bag. Here, Ms. Nishat Tusnime, project officer of SEEDS Asia was responsible to lead the whole session.

 

Session 5:

In the last session, trainers from FSCD conducted practical training on various emergency response activities. At first they gave an introduction on first aid materials previously kept in emergency warehouse and showed the first aid techniques for bleeding, injury, fracture etc. During demonstration participants also practiced different sling and bandage methods.

 

After first aid, trainers showed different emergency search and rescue techniques such as process of carrying an injured person, preparation of stretcher using two stick and blanket. They participated very actively and practiced the techniques they learned.

At the end, participants learned about basic firefighting tips and practically used fire extinguisher.

 

Closing session:

At the end participants took part in group photo session. They expressed their gratitude to URP project and SEEDS Asia to organize this valuable training. After that evening snacks was provided to the participants and the organizing team of SSEDS Asia gave thanks to all participants and closed the day long training program.