Ghana: International Day for Disaster Reduction marked in Upper East

Source(s): Ghana News Agency

Awaradone  - This year’s International Day for Disaster Reduction has been marked in the Upper East Region with a call on stakeholders in education to speed up the inclusion of Disaster Risk Reduction in the school curricular.

The year’s event which was organized at Awaradone in the Talensi District of the Region by the World Vision Area Development of the Talensi and Nabdam Districts under the theme: “Women and Girls the Invisible Force of Resilience”, attracted stakeholders including school children, parents, the National Disaster Management Organizations, Assembly Members and NGOs. The Day is celebrated on the 13th of October every year to raise public awareness about what member countries of the United Nations can do to reduce the risk of disasters, floods, wildfires, droughts, desertification, earthquakes and hurricanes among others. Speakers laid emphasis on the need for the MOE and GES to quickly ensure the inclusion of Disaster Risk Reduction in the school curricular so as to inculcate in school children, the spirit to fight to reduce disasters.

Mr Norbert Baba Akolbila, Manager of World Vision Ghana in the Talensi and Nabdam Districts, said children were the major agents of change and regretted the undue delay of policy makers to ensure the inclusion of Disaster Risk Reduction in their curricular.

“What these people don’t know is that we are the agents of change and should be encouraged to participate in disaster risk reduction and decision making. The formation of Environmental and Disaster Risk Reduction Clubs in our Schools by World Vision is very good.
It gives us the chance to talk about things that affect us and our environment. It helps us to contribute to our own safety and keep the environment safe for future generation.

This project must be commended and extended to other schools for others to also gaint”, said Miss Stella Abisiba, a Pupil of the Awaradone Primary School in a speech.

Mr David Aloku, Chairman of the Disaster Risk Reduction Task force of Awaradone Community, advised the pupils to stop creating bush fires in search of rats and also appealed to parents to desist from felling trees for charcoal.

Ms Mame Ntome, a taskforce Member of the Disaster Risk Reduction in Awaradone, said since the formation of the Task Force by World Vision and NADMO, disasters such as floods, bushfires and drought have been reduced drastically in the area.

Ms Dziedzorm Awude, Programme Officer in charge of Children Emergency Response and Disaster(C-ERDM) of World Vision, expressed happiness about the involvement of females, especially school girls in Disaster Management saying women could play a major role when it came to disaster risk reduction.

The pupils treated the gathering to a drama and poetry recital on Disaster Risk Reduction which attracted applause from the audience.

Explore further

Country and region Ghana
Share this

Please note: Content is displayed as last posted by a PreventionWeb community member or editor. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of UNDRR, PreventionWeb, or its sponsors. See our terms of use

Is this page useful?

Yes No Report an issue on this page

Thank you. If you have 2 minutes, we would benefit from additional feedback (link opens in a new window).