DRDM donates educational materials to schools |20 October 2016
The Ministry of Education and private schools have received books and DVDs as part of the International Day for Disaster Reduction celebrated on October 13.
The books, donated by the Division of Risk and Disaster Management (DRDM), are entitled ‘Let’s learn to prevent disasters’ (1st Edition) and ‘Learning about disaster prevention’ (2nd edition) compiled by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The hand-over of the books and DVDs took place yesterday afternoon in the Ministry of Education’s conference room.
Present at the event were the principal secretary for early childhood, primary and secondary education Merida Delcy, principal secretary for education planning, human resources & infrastructure development Linda Barallon, the director for primary schools Cyril Pillay, the director general of the DRDM Paul Labaleine, among other guests.
PS Delcy and PS Barallon accepted the donation from the director general of the DRDM Paul Labaleine.
Thanking DRDM, PS Delcy stated that such donation is vital for keeping the children aware about the potential of disaster.
“On behalf of the Ministry of Education, I want to say thank you. Our schools have been developing plans to make sure the students are aware of the potential of disaster that can happen anywhere. The 2006 tsunami has heightened our awareness of all precautions that every school should take in case of a disaster,” she said.
Mr Labaleine pointed out that DRDM’s duty is to try and prevent disasters from happening and ensure that each student along with every citizen know how to prepare themselves for such eventualities.
“Disaster prevention can prevent any event becoming a disaster. I am very glad that we are working alongside the school to come up with a guideline for disaster. Not all the times we can prevent schools from being affected by a disaster, it is not an easy task, but we try our level best to prevent anything that can take a life,” he said.
During the ceremony three private schools also received the books along with the DVDs, and they are the French School represented by Philippe David, the International School of Seychelles and Independent School represented by Margery Quatre.
Also during the ceremony PS Delcy announced that the school has introduced a safety section guideline to ensure school safety.
Today DRDM will be hosting an open day at the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) to showcase its work. The event starts at 9am.