Jammu: 3 Day Workshop on Child Centered Emergency Preparedness takes off

Jammu: Divisional Commissioner Sanjeev Verma inaugurated three-day State level Consultation on Child Centered Preparedness for Response Planning, here Thursday.
The workshop has been organized by J&K State Disaster Management Authority in collaboration with Divisional Disaster Management Authority, Jammu, National Disaster Management Authority and with the support of UNICEF.
The workshop witnessed the participation of officials of the administration of various districts and the resource persons from UNICEF.
Emergency Specialist UNICEF, Sarabjit Singh, Director Disaster Management, Aamir Ali, Additional Commissioner Jammu, Anuradha Rani, Director Social Welfare Department, Jammu Dr Bharat Bhushan, Former Member NDMA Dr Muzaffar Ahmed, all Additional Deputy Commissioners of Jammu Division besides Xavier Thomas from UNICEF, Disaster management Professionals and representatives of line departments were present.
In his inaugural address, the Div Com said a step-by-step process of Emergency Preparedness Planning will be chalked out for response plan and participants will prepare their social sector specific plans, which will incorporate surge, capacity building, coordination, inventorisation and prepositioning of resources. He underlined the need to document in plans the current sectoral response practices, gaps and bottlenecks in response, for better and effective coordination and implementation.
Emphasizing on prospective approach, he asked line departments to take effective steps to mainstream child-centered disaster risk consideration in their development planning to ensure continuity of services during disasters and also put in place preparedness and response plans, outlining various activities, capacity development needs and coordination mechanism. He urged for development of protocols for education, health, nutrition, especially for children in the age group of 0-6 years. He asked that manuals be prepared for composite small township concept in border areas, where all facilities and services could be provided under a single roof. He urged participants to share their ideas and experiences.
In his address, Emergency Specialist UNICEF Sarbjit Singh Sahota urged for putting in place a humanitarian architecture channelizing resources from multiple sources in the event of a disaster. He assured that UNICEF is ready for a long term commitment and will support the State Government for ensure disaster resilience.
Director Disaster Management Aamir Ali said disasters impact all the sections of society but the vulnerable sections including women and children are more likely to get impacted. He said during the workshop the social sector line-departments will be assisted to outline their strategy and plans to respond to identified humanitarian emergencies affecting children and women. He informed that a draft rapid child-centered risk analysis from the existing data and information has been prepared, wherein inputs from Srinagar workshop have been incorporated. The report aims to identify priority needs of children and women and help in crafting a realistic emergency preparedness for response plan and focuses on the gaps, proposed response and preparedness interventions. A capacity gap analysis will also be done to help the Government to understand what is needed to bring focus on needs and vulnerabilities of women and children. He said this risk profiling will aid the Government to build capacities of line departments, particularly the social sectors to reduce vulnerability of children and women to natural disasters. The plans that will be prepared as an outcome of this workshop will be followed up by the Disaster Management Professionals, with the line departments to institutionalize child centered disaster risk reduction in their regular programs.