Francis Sardauna in Katsina
The Nigerian Red Cross Society, in collaboration with the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project, has commenced the training of 6,000 students on tackling emergency situations and disaster management in their schools in Katsina State.
Speaking during the training on Wednesday, the state Chairman of the Red Cross Society, Dr. Aliyu Idris Funtua, said the trainees were selected from across the 578 secondary schools in three senatorial zones in the state.
He explained that the training was designed to acquaint the teachers and students with skills on how to apply first aid, take care of emergency situations and disaster management in times of crisis in their respective schools.
According to him, “The training is also centred on the subheadings of student protection and safeguarding, violence in schools, assertiveness, negotiation skills and evacuation drills.”
He, however, noted that the society had trained 3,000 members as first aiders and provided basic first aid training for regular marshals of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in the state, saying that over 800 volunteers across the state received emergency training on disaster management.
Earlier, the state Coordinator of AGILE project, Mustapha Shehu, said the critical issues of gender-based violence, evacuation techniques and drills were also administered to the students and teachers to help themselves, including identifying early warning of attacks.
He said: “In the end, our hope is that we will build the capacity of students and teachers in these areas and the Red Cross will support us to go round all the schools to step down this training which will take us to the last level of establishing school safety clubs.”
