By: Mariola Sequeira
Goalpara: A Salesian organization has joined hands with government agencies in Assam to train local people in disaster management techniques to deal with flood and other natural calamities.
More than 160 people, including women, from four village clusters attended the day long training session on April 23 at Lengopara in Goalpara district in the northeastern state.
Goalpara, which experiences moderate to servere intensity floods during the monsoons, is one of the flood prone districts in the state.
The training was organized by Bosco Reach Out, a social Development wing of Salesians, with the help of Fire and Emergency Service and Volunteer of Civil Defence Force Goalpara under the Project “Climate Change and Disaster Preparedness.”
The trainers explained different types of natural and manmade disasters such as earthquake, cyclone, flood, house burning among others.
They stressed the need for using locally available materials to deal with natural or manmade disasters with safety precautions.
The skill demonstration was conducted for village task forces of Bhoiskhuli, Borbarkhra, Balasari and Tenstars with improvised method that trains villages to use locally available material in time of disaster.
Bosco Reach Out has formed 30 such task forces in seven districts and eight regions of the state. Each task force comprises 15 to 20 members.
Mirza Abul Hussain, one of the leading firemen in the region, familiarized the participants with materials such as fire extinguishers, stretchers, different types of bandages, ropes, torch light and dry food and their use along with other locally available materials at the time of disaster.
He and his team also showed how to rescue injured people and other important aspects to deal with at the time of a disaster with a view to help them understand better.
The program was attended by Father Jayaprakash, associate director of Bosco Reach Out, Ezekiel, Project Coordinator on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction, Sanjay Basumatary, station officer, Goalpara, and his team.