Phnom Penh (December 21, 2012) – National and international NGO workers who specialize in emergency response and disaster risks reduction attended a 5-day training workshop on emergency management, held in Phnom Penh from 17-21 December 2012.
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The workshop which was jointly organized by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Regional Emergency Hub-South & South East Asia, and Life With Dignity (LWD), aimed to enhance the participants ability to undertake specific emergency related functions of the LWF country programs during emergency response operations and thereby to contribute effectively in overall emergency response in the country.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Sam Inn, Executive Director for LWD—an associate program of LWF and member of ACT Alliance—said human being had exploited from the earth and from the nature too much to fit its needs.
“Right now we see the consequences of these bad behaviors. These resulted in climate change, global warming, more storm and typhoon, cyclone, flood, and drought which caused disasterous impact on the next generation. So, we need to pay more and more attention on the capacity building on emergency management,” Dr. Inn said.
“Planning and preparedness are very important for emergency management,” he said, adding that LWD had some challenges and gained more experience from the past about emergency management and response. Involvement of the affected communities in the rapid impact assessment was particularly needed. “We learned about safety, shelters, water sanitation, hygiene, health, nutrition, food, and education.”
Climate-related and human-made disasters, such as floods, famines, droughts, earthquakes, and conflicts are predicted to affect millions of people in the world every year. This drew LWF’s attention to put more focus on strengthening capacity on emergency management by establishing an Emergency Team in Geneva and Emergency Hub for South and South East Asia.
Mr. Kepler Silaban, Executive Director of CDRM&CDS Indonesia, said this training was very important for all the participants, particularly for the Indonesian team of six people, including one from local Church and one government official.
“We learnt a lot how to manage the work in emergency situation and prepare emergency plan. The training gives us a lot of knowledge and skills in emergency management. When we go back to our country, we will apply all these knowledge and skills in our program. The first thing we will do is to set up an emergency response team in Indonesia which consists of many stakeholders such as government, communities, and church institution,” Mr. Kepler said.
Ms. Khin Mya Yi, Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Officer for LWF Myanmar, also highly valued the training workshop.
“I learnt a lot from this training. I learnt how to undertake the specific emergency related function of LWF program during the emergency response and operation, the procedures, and the importance of the contingency plan for emergency response,” she said.
“The contingency plan is important and we can immediately respond to the emergency needs to save lives when disaster strikes. When we go back to our country, we will share what we learnt with all of colleagues, including logistic and finance, and program staff,” she said.
She strongly expected that after sharing these useful knowledge and skills among colleagues and setting up an emergency response team, her team would be able to respond to disaster impact on time to save people’s lives.
There were 17 participants attending the workshop. They were from Cambodia’s National Committee for Disaster Management, LWD, Center for Disaster Risk Management and Community Development Studies (CDRM&CDS), and LWF Myanmar, including Church members.
All the participants were expected to bring back with them the following expectations to apply in their respective program:
- LWF New Global Strategy for Emergency Response
- LWF Emergency Manual 2012
- Emergency contingency plan and its components
- Awareness about simulated emergency situation
- Field visit with the interaction with District Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction (DCDM) to Kampong Leng of Kampong Channang Province, a disaster prone area of Cambodia
- Sector/cluster wise intervention in the emergency response in the country program/associate program
- Understand the rapid and detail assessment of the emergency situation
- ACT Appeal system/mechanism
- Integrate emergency response indicators into the project strategy and the key steps of the project cycle management
- Importance and component of leadership skill for emergency response
For more information, please, contact Leak Ratna (Mr.), LWD Communication Coordinator | E-mail:ratna@lwd.org.kh | Phone: 012 819 121