Plan International Holds Workshop on Safe School Awareness
Plan international Sierra Leone has concluded a workshop on Comprehensive School Safety on 25th April 2017 at Plan International Sierra Leone Head Office conference hall.
The workshop attracted stakeholders from the Ministry of Education Science and Technology, the Environment Protection Agency, Office of National Security and staff of Plan International Sierra Leone.
The Disaster Risk Reduction Manager for Plan International, Edward Sesay who gave a gave the purpose of the workshop informed that it is to increase awareness and ensure that the commitment signed by government at global level is realize. ‘‘Plan International Sierra Leone is a body that helps government to realize the commitment they have signed at global level, and to ensure that these commitment are realized.’’ Sesay said.
He furthered that, Plan International is working with children as they are at the heart of everything that Plan International Sierra Leone is doing, adding that, the school is one of the places where children go to learn for their own development, hence one of the conduit that Plan International has been working with to make certain that the commitment signed by government is realized.
Sesay went further to disclose that, the workshop to raise government awareness on school safety and capacity building noting that at the end of the one (1) day workshop participants will form part of the disaster committee in schools and look at structural problems with schools in terms of construction and also looking at how safe schools are useful for children ‘‘we will be conducting assessment in pilot schools to make them safe for the children in addition to ensure that the community is also safe.
Plan International Sierra Leone, Program Support Manager Strategy Development , Miriam Murray stated among other things that, school safety is about physical structures and how to make the environment safe for children so that they can feel safe when they are in school.
She asked the rhetorical question, ‘‘in as much as plan international is advocating for Girls to be in school, are schools safe for children?
The Program Support Manager said, school safety is about telling people before hand, building resilience in the programming for schools because if Plan International S/L says education is key to development, it has to redouble efforts by making schools safe for children, teachers and administrators.
Lead facilitator for the workshop, Dr. Victor Massaquoi informed that hundreds of disaster occurs every year and it is difficult to prevent them from happening but also pointed out that, disasters can be limited through the degree of devastation.
He said, there is nothing like natural disaster but natural hazards such as floods and earthquakes adding that disaster risk is every ones business, anyone working in development or aid response needs to think about disaster risk that is common.
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