The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has inaugurated Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Club in 10 pilot schools in Anambra State on Thursday, May 17, 2012.
The event which took place at Girls Secondary School (Amaenyi) Awka witnessed a huge turnout of state government functionaries, school principals, teachers and students.
Speaking at the event, the Director General of NEMA, Alhaji Muhammad Sani Sidi, represented by the agency’s Director of Planning, Research and Forecasting,
Dr. Charles Adakole Agbo emphasized that the aim of the programme is to take emergency preparedness and response to the grassroots level and also inculcate disaster consciousness in the children and youths of this country. The programme, he added, would instill in them the culture of risk identification, reduction, preparedness and mitigation in their formative years.
The DG reiterated that plans are underway to extend the programme to other parts of the country, explaining that children and youths are potential leaders and the formation of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Club would imbibe them with the requisite knowledge to make local communities resilient.
In his remark, the Chairman of Anambra State Post-Primary School Service Commission (PPSSC), Sir Norbert Obi, commended NEMA for the initiative and urged the Agency to extend the programme to other schools in the state. He advised that desk officers should be appointed in each local government area to monitor the programme for sustainability.
The Chairman of the occasion, Chief Maja Umeh who is the State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism encouraged the children and others present, to put into practice whatever was thought to them so as to have a disaster free society and ensure environmental sustainability.
Speaking at the event, the South East Zonal Coordinator of NEMA, Dr. Onimode Abdullahi Bandele explained that the inaugurated club members would be trained in basic first aid and emergency management issues so as to make them useful to their immediate communities and ensure sustainability of the environment in which they live.
