KARACHI:As many as 60 participants from various civic agencies were trained to deal efficiently with emergency situations in an urban set up. The three-day training titled ‘Enhancing Urban Capacity for responding to Emergencies’ was a collaborative joint effort by the Commissioner’s Office, Jinnah Sindh Medical University’s APPNA Institute of Public Health (AIPH), International Committee of the Red Cross and Johns Hopkins University.
Representatives from different city departments like police, fire, rescue, PDMA, Civil defense, DMC, KMC, Jinnah Hospital, Civil Hospital, Lyari General Hospital, Edhi and Chhipa Ambulance Services attended the training.
Speaking at the press conference at the conclusion of the workshop, the Vice Chancellor Jinnah Sindh Medical University Prof Tariq Rafi said that this training was part of the University’s mission to provide modern innovative and relevant solutions to the society. “Capacity building of front-line workers who may be the rescuers or earliest responders in disaster situations is vital for a bustling city like Karachi where civic organizational network is fragmented. Training courses like these will contribute towards a cohesion of response from the city in any adverse event.”
He thanked the trainers from Johns Hopkins University for sharing their valuable experience and stressed the University’s support in promoting collaborative efforts to improve lives and influence societies.
Prof Lubna Ansari-Baig appreciated the strength of participants from different organizations and explained that this training was especially designed on request from Commissioner’s office, as an adjunct to the AIPH’s on-going collaborative project titled “Measuring urban capacity for humanitarian crisis”.
She stressed on making use of the limited resources in a developing country like ours and said that the individual efforts of organizations need to be channelized appropriately to get the best results.
Deputy Commissioner Karachi South Salahuddin Ahmed welcomed the participants and trainers and said that this training was very effective for capacity building of disaster response workers, which will contribute towards saving precious lives in case of an urban adverse event.
He stressed on the need to reduce the response time in case of an emergency, and appreciated the value of the training workshop in reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of the city-wide disaster management system.