Disaster Preparedness
Bipul K Debnath
The training department of Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) was established in 1997 with a vision to increase motivational capacity, social awareness, and leadership capability of officers and volunteers, according to a booklet of the organisation. Its Youth and Volunteers Department works under the training department.
The main fields of BDRCS training are Red Cross and Red Crescent (RCRC) movement, first aid, search and rescue, fire safety and management, disaster management, training of trainers and others. The training department also conducts different courses for other local, national, international, government and non-government organisations.
SM Ahmed, Director of Youth and Volunteers Department, BDRCS, told YI: There are four stages regarding disaster management. They are risk reduction, preparation, response and finally, rehabilitation. We work in all the stages from our department. Response is a part of relief activities. Rehabilitation is a lengthy process and we have some plans for that as well. For risk reduction, we identify the most vulnerable places. We also have various projects and initiatives all over the country for the development of disaster-prone areas. For preparation, we have numerous cyclone and flood shelters. People can easily avail the facilities. We have a cyclone preparedness programme where our volunteers are trained on what to do during a cyclone or when the warning is announced.
Sharing the training activities of his department, Ahmed said: We have five types of trained volunteers. They are: Red Crescent Youth (RCY) members, unit/branch RCY core volunteers, Cyclone Preparedness Programme (CPP) volunteers, community disaster response team, and senior volunteers. We have 720,800 RCY members from 13,600 educational institutions; 3,450 unit/branch RCY volunteers from 69 core groups; 55,260 CPP volunteers; 2,621 community disaster response teams from 88 communities in 19 districts; and our senior volunteers are our former RCY volunteers.
We have trained them on RCRC induction, first aid, leadership and disaster risk reduction, SAR (search and rescue), RFL (restoring family links), ToT (training of trainers), SEC (support to emergency care), rapid assessment through mobile phone, leadership, signal warning and evacuation, mock exercise, community based disaster risk reduction, participatory approach for safe shelter awareness (PASSA) activities, and community development. In times of disaster or crisis, our volunteers are well prepared for disaster response, signal warning, search and rescue, evacuation (shelter), first aid, transportation of casualties and dead body management. Our working areas are flood, tornado, cyclone, storm, landslide, building or structural collapse, boat capsize, fire incident, and even domestic violence. Our senior volunteers are available on short-term basis for emergency or special events, Ahmed added.
Atikur Rahman, team leader, Red Crescent Youth, Dhaka College Unit, said about their activities: In times of disaster or crisis, our team members provide various services like search and rescue, supporting BDRCS for relief goods distribution, psychosocial services, information regarding thunderbolts, creating awareness about earthquake and its consequences, pre-disaster response alert, etc. After taking training from BDRCS, we have trained our members for disaster preparedness and formed 25 trained teams. We have already taken part in many programmes and events in disaster-prone areas where our volunteers did good jobs.
Photos: Courtesy
