The geological department had recently disclosed that the country will continue to experience heavy rains within the next couple of months that might lead to flash flood across the country particularly the slums and waterways areas. Over the past three weeks there were reported cases of floods and landslide that claimed the lives of seven people and loss of properties worth millions of Leones. Avoiding the occurrence of flood across Freetown, the Freetown City Council (FCC) together with the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) and the Office of National Security (ONS) have been engaged in flood mitigation exercises since December 2018. Complementing these efforts towards flood and disaster prevention, Cordaid have concluded a 3-days engagement with community stakeholders comprising of Councilors and the Community Disaster Ward management Committee (CDC) on capacity building on risk assessment and identifying hazards within their communities.
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The engagement took place from Wednesday 7th to Friday 9th August 2019 at Cordaid conference hall off Kingharman Road. According to the Cordaid Resilience Project Manager Chamunoda Zambuko, they are training the beneficiaries for them to be in a better position to identify hazards and how to control them when they occur in their various communities. He disclosed that they have planned this event for a very long time and its coincides with the current situation on the ground which is why they decided to change the training materials to suit what is happening in their various communities. “Currently in Freetown we are targeting a catchment area known as Tower Hill with 40 communities but however we are going to make sure we set CDM structures in all 74 communities within Freetown,” he assured. He disclosed that the communities they will be working with in Freetown, ranges from the top of New England, Tree Planting down to Kroobay simply because they fall within the disaster prone zones. He furthered that they are building the capacity of the beneficiaries c and might also assist them in constructing drainages. The Deputy Head of Social Service Department at the FCC, Eric Musa, maintained that the engagement is very timely as FCC and other stakeholders are busy battling in trying to address the flood situation across Freetown. He disclosed they would be replicating the ideas gained to other community people in preventing disasters from occurring, explaining that most of the destructions around are being caused by the community people. “This engagement have helped us to distinguish between hazards and disaster,” he said, disclosing that before now they have been referring to every incident as disasters which only occurs when they don’t have the capacity to address the situation they will call for external support. Councilor Fatmata Kamara representing Ward 400 Constituency 113 Western area, expressed appreciation toward the training which she described as ‘game changer’ in the fight against flooding and other forms of hazards within their various communities. According to her, with this engagement she had realized that they don’t need to wait for government intervention whenever disaster occur in their communities as they should find ways of addressing it before government intervention which will help save lives and properties. She disclosed that before this time she had been engaging with her community people in clearing and cleaning drainages and waterways as way of preventing blockages that might lead to flooding, assuring that they will continue to do so even after the rains to ensure a healthy environment.
By Alhaji Manika Kamara
Tuesday August 13, 2019.
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