Essential training for Pakistani aid workers

In the last year, we have trained 1126 aid workers, an 18% increase on the year before. More than 95% of the humanitarians we trained were from Pakistan themselves. By increasing the reach of our training programmes and focusing in on the local people who will be the first to respond to a disaster, we are ensuring that our training has a significant impact on people in the face of a disaster.

We trained workers from 676 organisations, about a third of which were National NGOs and another third were International NGOs. The remainder were from UN agencies, government departments, or other organisations.The quality of RedR's training remains outstanding.  For example, 93% of RedR course participants said their knowledge and skills gains were 'Excellent' or 'Good.'

As part of our 'Disaster Resilince Starts Here' campaign, centred in our Pakistan country office, we ran a number of Community Based Disasier Risk Management courses. The course teaches about how to prepare for disasters to reduce their impact. Related courses that we ran in Pakistan include Search, Rescue & Evacuation and Fire Fighting and First Aid.

Continuing our commitment to ensuring the safety of humanitarians in Pakistan, we taught them about Driver Safety and First Aid, Crises and Security Management, and Personal Safety and Security.We have found that there is a strong need for our security training in profesisons outside of but related to humanitarian aid work: our Security Training for Journalists course filled a vital need this year and promises to do so in the years to come.

Our Pakistan programme continues to also pass on considerable knowledge and experience in fundamental humanitarian subjects ranging from Essentials in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion to Monitoring and Evaluation.

The trainers and humanitarians in our Pakistan country office will keep teaching life-saving skills and knowledge that prepare aid workers for the complex challenges they face dealing with disasters. We will continue to update you as we receive new stories from the field.

Links:

• Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst
• Ready for the floods: Premi's story
• Disaster Risk Reduction: Are we doing enough?

“We were planning to launch a disaster risk reduction project but did not have anyone with the training”. 

Mussarat, local aid worker

Aid agencies did all they could to help the communities of the Sindh survive in the difficult aftermath of the floods in 2010, 2011 and 2012, but knew that teaching people to cope when floods struck in future would be the most valuable gift they could give.  However few of their staff were trained in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

In 2012 RedR delivered Disaster Risk Reduction courses to several Pakistani NGOs and local government departments. Mussarat and four of her colleagues from an NGO called Indus Resource Centre, based in Mirpur Khas district, Sindh province, are now able to work with whole villages to protect them against future floods. In practice this means that:

• Hazards have been identified and addressed. These include low-lying electricity cables or large holes that could be filled with water during a flood (as well as being a direct hazard these attract mosquitoes)
• Pre-emptive structural changes have been made. House flooring has been raised to a higher level, walls fortified using traditional tools people already own plans put in place to monitor canal water levels to ensure it remains an effective barrier against floods
• Links have been built with local and district authorities, identifying government and media resources and key regional points of contact, such as district fire departments and irrigation departments. These will reduce the vulnerability of the village and make a coordinated future effort of relief and recovery possible

The organisations that RedR has trained in Mirpur Khas district cover the whole region, population 15,000. Musarrat's NGO alone covers 23 villages, meaning thousands of people are better prepared for future disasters.