Upper East Red Cross puts in measures to reduce disasters

The Upper East Regional Office of the Ghana Red Cross Society has embarked on a series of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) programmes to increase awareness and put in response strategies to reduce their occurrence.

The programmes, dubbed Community Disaster Preparedness and response Teams (CDPRTS) are being carried out in some selected communities in the Nabdam, Binduri, and Bongo districts and the Kassena Nankana Municipality.

Mr Paul Wooma, the Upper East Regional Manager of the Ghana Red cross Society, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, said a series of training were on-going in the districts to ensure that disasters and their impact on people and livelihoods were reduced.

He said the CDPRTS were taken through identification of hazards prevalence and response strategies, the history of the Red Cross, disaster management, fire drills and administration of first aid.

The essence, Mr Wooma said, was to prepare communities on disaster risk preparedness and ensure that some hazards did not escalate into serious disasters.

He said the mud buildings in the communities were easily affected by heavy rains and called on the people to strengthen their mud structures by improving the soil texture with a little cement to make the houses firmer.

Mr Wooma said Ghana Red Cross Society, through the support of the SWISS Red Cross, was working with the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to deal with emergencies and for better coordinating mechanisms to respond to disasters, taking into cognisance the unique roles of all collaborators.

That, he said, was in line with the 2015-2030 Disaster Risk Management framework that required more proactive rather than reactive measures to address.