Local humanitarian organisation, the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society (ZRCS) has scaled up efforts to enforce disaster risk reduction in flood-prone Muzarabani district in Mashonaland Central province.
By Our Correspondent
This initiative which is part of the Building Community Resilience Through Integrated Health and Disaster Risk Reduction programme funded by Finnish Red Cross is also targeting schools in the district under the Red Cross School Clubs programme, with students trained in junior first aid, among a host of other health and hygiene activities.
Speaking about the new innovation, the organisation’s secretary-general Maxwell Phiri said they had deliberately designed the programme to capture the young as they had a bearing on what happens in their homes.
“The young people are a great vehicle for behaviour change in communities and for an area like Muzarabani where disasters and other natural hazards are common place, the Red Cross School Clubs initiative is a move in the right direction,” he said.
“Through the clubs, trained school health masters and Red Cross volunteers working with our programme staff are playing a key role in training students in basic first aid, health and hygiene practices and instilling in them the right humanitarian values while educating on disaster response and preparedness. In turn, the students take the designed key messages to their communities and we are happy with the progress.”
Last Thursday, ZRCS held its inaugural Red Cross School Clubs competitions that included, among other things, first aid competitions, poem competitions and quiz related to issues of health, disaster response and preparedness as well as environmental management.
“Beyond the trainings that we have championed, the Red Cross School Clubs competitions were aimed at measuring the level of impact and how much knowledge had been gained during the period under review,” Phiri said.
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“As you can see, we have both primary and secondary school students together with members of the community who have also had their trainings and the amount of knowledge on disaster preparedness and related health issues exhibited is more than encouraging. We intend to make these competitions annual.”
The Red Cross Schools Club competitions were also attended by key government stakeholders, among them the district administrator’s office, the Environmental Management Authority, Zimbabwe Republic Police, as well as the district health and education departments.
In their remarks, the various government departments commended the ZRCS for the role it continues to play in complementing government humanitarian efforts.
ZRCS through its International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies funded food insecurity emergency appeal, is also providing a cash transfer food security intervention in Muzarabani district, among many other districts across Zimbabwe to mitigate the El Niño-induced drought that has left a greater part of the Zimbabwean population vulnerable.
Other key innovations under the Building Community Resilience Through Integrated Health and Disaster Risk Reduction programming project in Muzarabani include the tsotso stove initiative, which is designed to minimise the cutting down of trees through effective usage of firewood, construction of footbridges, borehole rehabilitation, road clearance as well as gulley reclamation.
A local theatre production, Rufaro Theatre is also working with the Red Cross volunteer structures in the district to educate the community through edutainment. All the pertinent issues to disaster risk reduction are captured in their plays and they have become a common feature at Red Cross events.
