Bauchi – The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says it will soon include disaster risk management in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools to ensure early contact with the issues involved.
Malam Umar Shittu, the state’s coordinator of the agency, disclosed this in a speech he delivered at a seminar organised by NEMA in Bauchi on Thursday.
“What we want is to inculcate such early training of disaster management to the youths and prepare them for any eventuality,” he said.
He said that the policy was necessary to enable the youth play a vital role in managing disasters and in handling of solid and liquid waste.
The NEMA official said that more care had to be taken because it had been predicted that in 2015, the North East and North Central would be affected by flood as water would be released from the Cameroon’s Lagdo dam.
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“NEMA has put in place mitigation such as the development of relevant plans for disaster management and re-positioning of emergency relief materials.
`We have also undertaken some training of grassroots emergency volunteers on how to respond to emergency cases,” he said.
In her contribution, the Head of Administration, Gombe office of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mrs Thereza Omaga, suggested that community health workers should be re-assigned the role of house-to-house inspection of sanitation and proper drainage maintenance.
“Due to the neglect of such practices, environmental issues have become a national debate,” she said.
Omaga urged the State and Local Governments, religious and traditional leaders to join in the campaign to foster environmental sanitation. (NAN)