EU-funded project targets everyday risks among women and children in Egypt
Activities have begun in Egypt under an EU-funded civil protection project, as part of an awareness raising effort to help promote children’s and women’s awareness of risks they run in their daily life and to prepare them to react to potential disasters.
The initiative was chosen by the Egyptian General Administration for Civil Protection as part of the awareness raising activities being implemented as part of the EU-funded Euro-Mediterranean Programme on Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Natural and Man-made Disasters (PPRD South).
Egypt – which together with Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Montenegro are implementing similar awareness activities – is pursuing the aim of a community safer from everyday risks through a better level of preparedness and awareness thanks to an educational programme for the prevention of accidents and health risks.
The targeted area selected for the project’s implementation, one of the poorest in the Egyptian capital, is the eastern part of Cairo, including the districts of El Nahda, El Salam, El Mataria, Zeinhom and Deouka.
The campaign intends to educate school children and housewives on how to prevent and cope with accidents, as well as on how to improve hygiene and health at home and in the surroundings.
Seminars for housewives will hand out risk manuals, and procedures on how to follow the best practices for a good housekeeping will be explained in detail, while experts from the Red Crescent and the Egyptian General Administration for Civil Protection will animate “Civil Protection Days” in schools.
The €5 million PPRD South Programme – which runs for three years and is managed by a consortium led by the Italian Civil Protection Department together with the French, Algerian, Egyptian Civil Protection Authorities and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) – is also organising training workshops dealing with other risks in the region such as wild fires, technological disasters, floods, epidemics and drought. (ENPI Info Centre)