Communities Urged to partner young people in disasters risks Matters

Sherigu (UE), Oct. 14, GNA - Mr Patrick Akake, Upper East Regional Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) on Thursday advised communities to begin involving children in disaster risk management activities to enable them to grow with disaster prevention attitudes.

He said children and young people were most vulnerable in times of disaster and so there was the need to involve them in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) .

Mr Akake said this when he addressed a gathering in Serigu near Bolgatanga on the regional observation of the 2011 World Disaster Reduction Day on the theme, “Making children and young people partners for Disaster Risk Reduction”.

He said children remained at risk and very vulnerable to hazards and for that matter there was the need to involve them in all campaigns directed at Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) at the school level.

He said activities such as Hazard Assessment, Vulnerability Assessment, Capacity Assessment and Planning should be encouraged when tackling root causes of disasters.

He encouraged the community members to undertake communal clean up campaigns and guard against the activities that might ruin the environment and deprive the communities of their vegetative cover.

He said one factor considered in DRR was poverty and that the ability of the people to cope with disaster depended on their poverty levels. He therefore urged community members to take advantage of irrigable areas to undertake dry season gardening to augment their means of livelihood.

Mr Alfred Ayamga, a Fire Officer at the Ghana National Fire Service in Bolgatanga advised communities to guard against activities that led to fire outbreaks, saying over 90 per cent of fire outbreaks were caused by negligence.

He advised farmers to ensure that fire set for cooking in farms and cigarette butts were not left unquenched.

He said users of LPG gas for domestic and commercial cooking should ensure that their regulators were removed from the cylinders after cooking.