Pujehun Town, Kpanka Kabundeh Chiefdom, Pujehun District, Friday 17 September 2021 – The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) today commenced four days training/engagement exercise that seeks to enhance the capacities of NDMA’s Chiefdom Disaster Management Committees (CDMC), build community resilience and ensure a reduction in the occurrence of natural disasters in eight (8) chiefdoms in Pujehun district with support from the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP).
In his welcome note, the Office of National Security (ONS) Pujehun District Security Coordinator, Festus Gbanie, said he was exceedingly gratified to serve as chairman of such a propitious event saying that, the training/engagement is very timely in strengthening and reducing the risk associated with disasters in Pujehun district. He also applauded UNDP for their relentless efforts in supporting Sierra Leone and other Agencies to fulfil their mandate.
Margaret Kamara, a principal senior officer of NDMA, who is assigned to lead this training/engagement, said her Agency, the NDMA is committed to building resilient disaster-prone communities in the country. She furthered that, this is a clear manifestation that NDMA is not only focusing on disaster mitigation in Freetown but the entire country contrary to purported stories on social media.
She noted that this is not the first time UNDP is supporting NDMA to build the capacity of prone communities.
Pujehun district is the second district UNDP is supporting to improve the fragility of disaster communities, their first support to NDMA on same was implemented in Port Loko and targeted twelve (12) chiefdoms respectively.
She concluded by encouraging the participants to take full responsibility and concentrate the knowledge garnered in improving their community’s understanding of risk management, prevention and response.
Margarette Dauda, the Program Officer of UNDP, started by expressing satisfaction over the strategic partnership between NDMA and UNDP.
She said UNDP is committed to supporting NDMA in building the rigidity of vulnerable communities and the overall management of disaster in the country pointing out that their first intervention was to support NDMA build the capacities of chiefdoms in Port Loko and that she is pleased that the established structures are doing exceptionally well in disaster mitigations in their respective chiefdoms.
She reproved the CDMCs in Pujehun to make good use of this opportunity. She said UNDP and NDMA will continue to monitor progress in their respective chiefdoms.
She encouraged them to judiciously utilize the knowledge accumulated to benefit themselves and their communities to effectively manage the occurrences of hazards.
The training was designed to specifically target high-risk disaster-prone chiefdoms in Pujehun district that usually experience flooding, fire outbreaks and windstorms.
These chiefdoms were carefully selected by a joint team that comprised senior staff from both NDMA and UNDP.
The training is in fulfilment of NDMA’s core mandate in consonance with its 2020 Act to establish national, regional, district and chiefdom disaster management committees for the prevention and management of disasters and similar emergencies throughout Sierra Leone.
The training/engagement attracted participants like Paramount Chiefs, the Pujehun District Council Chairman, Okada Riders, Market Women, Youth Groups, Fishermen, traditional leaders, Women leaders etc.
The eight chiefdoms that will benefit from the training are: Kpanga, Malen, Kpanga Krim, Kpaka, Mano Sakrim (MSK), Yekemo Kpukumu (YKK), Galliness and Soro Gbema chiefdoms respectively.
The training is in line with NDMA’s continued effort in building the capacity of the most vulnerable communities to enhance the conduct of assessment, risk mapping, hazard profiling and mapping, development of contingency plans at the community level, early warning of hazards, vulnerability and capacity assessment and risk communication through community radios and engagements.
In June 2021, representatives from both NDMA and UNDP visited Pujehun, engaged relevant stakeholders in the district and constituted chiefdom disaster management committees (CDMC) in each of the eight (8) targeted chiefdoms within the district.
Each CDMC has a total of eighteen members, having the Paramount Chiefs as heads of the various committees and chiefdom speakers as deputies, the women’s leaders, youth leaders, representative of bike riders, representative of boat owners and a representative of the traditional leaders in each chiefdom all formed part of the chiefdom disaster management committees.
It is expected that this training/engagement will enhance community resilience and ensure a reduction in the occurrence of natural disasters in the Pujehun district.
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Directorate of Communications
National Disaster Management Agency
Contact: +23278388946
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