Disaster survivors, children get preparedness tips

February 10, 2018 Community Billboard

Super Typhoon Lawin survivors in Lubuagan, Kalinga undergo Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (CBDRRM) training course held on February 6-8, 2018. The training is conducted by the Office of Civil Defense Cordillera (OCD-CAR) in coordination with the local government of Lubuagan, Kalinga.
Participants from Brgy. Poblacion and far-flung communities such as barangays Dangoy, Tanglag, and Lower Uma actively engaged in the identification, analysis, treatment, monitoring, and evaluation of disaster risks in their localities.
According to OCD-CAR Director Andrew Alex Uy, the 3-day training course aims to explain the importance, key concepts and legal bases of community-based DRRM, describe its key steps, discuss the necessary community and family DRRM mechanisms before, during and after a disaster, and how to fully implement these concepts.
“We have identified communities that were hardly hit by Super Typhoon Lawin. Based on our record, Kalinga has the highest number of affected population with more than 200,000 individuals and 98% of them were displaced. This is also the first time that the town will be provided with this kind of capacity-building program. We are targeting to avoid the recurrence of this worst-case scenario (Super Typhoon Lawin) that happened in October 2016.” added Uy.
Also, OCD-CAR training chief Guadaliva Panitio specified that the CBDRRM training will strengthen barangays’ DRRM structure – focusing on their roles and responsibilities towards being functional barangay DRRM committees.
Meanwhile, Grades 4 and 5 pupils at Baguio Central School (BCS) get disaster preparedness tips from the region’s action icon of preparedness – Kapitan Alerto. In coordination with the Department of Education Baguio Division, the OCD-CAR training team visited BCS to conduct 1-day DRRM training for children on February 2, 2018.
In his opening remarks, BCS Head Teacher Nixon C. Elahe said that the selected pupils were tasked to echo their learnings on DRRM to their schoolmates since most of them experienced disasters in their own communities.
The training comprised of lectures, games, and quizzes about the Philippine DRRM System and Basic Disaster Safety tips. Alerto elaborated on the importance of Emergency Survival Kit or “Go Bag”. Aside from children and disaster survivors, anticipate that other sectors will also be involved in different training activities on DRRM since OCD’s training approach shifted from Local Government Units (LGU) to various sectors.
The National DRRM council, through the capacity-building and training services of OCD, will modify and update several modules this year to anchor the demands of different vulnerable sectors. Wendelle Domingcil & Samantha Laron, Interns – OCD-CAR / ABN