DILI, 14 july 2021 (TATOLI) – The Secretary of State for Civil Protection appreciates the commitment of Mercy Corps to work together with the Government of Timor-Leste, through SEPC to enhance Timor-Leste’s preparedness for natural disasters.
The State Secretary for Civil Protection, Joaquim José Gusmão dos Reis Martins informed that since last year, Mercy Corps had support SEPC with a number of programs, including the establishment of the early warning system in Comoro and Maloa River, Capacity Development for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) for communities in municipalities, Disseminating vital information on disaster risk reduction via radio and TV, and providing financial support and technical assistance to SEPC during the april-4 floods.
Martins said capacity building or relevant training for the team who are going to look after the system was important to ensure the reliability and effectiveness of early warning systems: “It is important to ensure the maintenance and continuity of the systems. We always need to make sure that the systems function when disasters come,” Martins told reporters, in Dili, today.
He said SEPC had limited resources, saying, therefore, cooperation with partners like Mercy Corps and other partners is important to strengthen the nation’s disaster response.
“One important role of SEPC is natural disaster prevention and mitigation. To realize this, we establish cooperation with partners, increasing awareness, capacity building, and early warning system installation, and so on. You know disasters are unpredictable and we put efforts to reduce the impacts of the disasters,” Martins said.
In addition, the Country Director of Mercy Corps Timor-Leste, Jules Kean said that building disaster-ready communities is a key pillar of Mercy Corps Timor-Leste country strategy.
He said to address the challenges facing Timor-Leste, Mercy Corps worked with key partners, especially Civil Protection to implement community-based disaster risk reduction programming for more than eight years, largely focusing in Dili, Ainaro, Ermera, and Covalima Municipality, with the goal of creating disaster-ready communities.
“Our partnership with Civil Protection has covered many aspects of community-based disaster risk management work, including conducting participatory disaster risk assessments and join community planning process, increasing awareness of disaster risk, forming Suco disaster management committees, providing disaster risk management training, building skills of first responders with first aid and search and rescue training, establishing early warning systems, building community-level structural and nature-based mitigation measures, and increasing risk-sensitive livelihood to mitigate disaster risk,” said Kean.
Related news:Mercy Corps and SSCP sign MoU for community based disaster risk reduction
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Rafy Belo
