KULOB, September 23, 2010, Asia-Plus — A meeting of a group of rescuers from local communities in Kulob and Vose district that were trained by international organization Mission East with representatives from local authorities and the Committee for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense (CES) took place in the city of Kulob today.
The meeting was held in the framework of the project, Civil Society for Disaster Risk Reduction: Linking Agents of Change for Disaster Risk Management in Tajikistan.
The project chief officer Shodi Shamolov told Asia-Plus the rescue teams had been set up in 24 villages of the mentioned districts and the main task is to involve them into activities carried out by CES and local authorities. To raise efficiency of work of rescuers the teams have been reorganized into six small coalitions consisting of four groups each, Shamolov said.
“Rescuers trained under the project did a lot during the spring floods in the area; however, their activities were autonomous and it is necessary to involve them into disaster risk reduction events that are being held in the region,” Shamolov stressed.
The project, Civil Society for Disaster Risk Reduction: Linking Agents of Change for Disaster Risk Management in Tajikistan, is implemented by Mission East under financial support of the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) in the framework of DIPECHO (Disaster Preparedness ECHO) program. Launched in 2008, the project will work till July 2011.
The main objective of the project is to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability of local communities and institutions through support to strategies that enable them to better prepare for, mitigate and respond to natural disasters.
Through this project Mission East aims to respond to the problems above through the consolidation and reinforcement of disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster risk management (DRM) practices at a local level and at the national and local government levels, while increasing formal and informal linkages between government and communities, and public and private partnerships.
