Steps will be taken to include subject on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Non Formal Primary Education (NFPE) programme. We shall have to solve our own problem. It is essential to reach this message of the programme to 82, 000 primary schools.
The State Minister of the Ministry for Primary and Mass Education, Motahar Hossain MP said this at a sharing workshop on Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Non Formal Primary Education (NFPE) held under joint aegis of Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) and Concern Universal (CU) at the Dhanmondi DAM Bhaban auditorium in the city on 22 July, 2010.
The state minister further said, half of the population of the country are illiterates. The government will soon implement a project to literate four crore population. In the aforesaid project, the subject on DRR will be included. Recommendations of this workshop will have to reach all concerned.
Speakers said that the pilot project to mainstream Disaster Risk Reduction in over 1576 primary non formal schools undertaken jointly by CU and DAM within the framework of the Fifth DIPECHO Action Plan for South Asia and using the European Union-funded non formal education project led by DAM-the UNIQUE Project. Through the pilot project, CU and DAM have so far reached 82,000 learners and 61,000 guardians with essential life-saving disaster and climate change related messages.
The pilot project covers the most vulnerable 44 Upazilas of Chittagong, Rangamati, Noakhali, Barisal, Dhaka, Mymensingh and Rangpur.
With the Sharing Workshop, CU and DAM shared the lessons learnt and the materials developed over the course of the pilot project but also heared from similar experiences and discussed the way forward with both disaster management and education stakeholders to ensure that NFPE learners have access to essential information on disasters.
Dhaka Ahsania Mission Executive Director M. Ehsanur Rahman presided. Bureau of Non Formal Education (BNFE) Director General Rezaul Kader was present as Special Guest. DAM’s Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction Project Co-ordinator Md Jahangir Alam presented the background of the pilot initiative. DAM’s Programme Director, Shafiqul Islam acted as moderator at the workshop. Concern Universal’s Head of the DRR Unit, Jessica Chaix shared the Lessons Learnt and experiences of the pilot initiative.