Disabled learn how to cope with disasters |26 September 2013

The National Council for the Disabled is equipping its staff and people living with disabilities with knowledge of how to cope with disasters and emergency situations.

This is through a four-day training session organised by the Social Affairs Department and the National Council for the Disabled in collaboration with the Fire and Rescue Services of Seychelles among other stakeholders.

The session is being held to commemorate the International Day for Disaster Reduction (DDR) on October 13.

The DDR is a day chosen to celebrate how people and their communities are helping to reduce their risk to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of DDR.

The theme chosen to commemorate this day is ‘Living with Disability and Disasters’ and will be focusing on people with disabilities.  The reason being that almost too often people with disabilities are among the most excluded in society. Their plight is magnified when disaster strikes and they are unable to deal with it accordingly.

Their abilities to provide their own distinctive contribution in preparing their community for and responding to disasters are often overlooked; therefore their own capability to cope in emergency situations is likewise not taken into consideration.

All of the staff who comprise the North East Point Hospital facility as a whole, are also benefitting from the workshop. They are being equipped with the knowledge needed in cases of emergency therefore complementing that of the people they care for at the hospital facility.

The session, which is being facilitated by Patrick Payet from the Fire and Rescue Services of Seychelles, aims at educating the participants on safety and preventive measures to take during a fire such as knowing the fire assembly point and the different steps of evacuation procedures.

The workshop will act as a mean of shedding light on risk assessment study done by DRDM (Department of Risk and Disaster Management) to identify the needs of the disabled and infirmed in disasters.

The training will concentrate mainly in the area of North East Point Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre, located along a stretch of road battling sea erosion hence ideal as the centre hosts several institutions where the old, in poor health, terminally ill and disabled people are staying.