Mr. Arambepola, Director Urban Disaster Risk Management (UDRM) at Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) visited Muslim Aid field office. He was being welcomed by Muslim Aid Country Director Khobaib A Vahedy and thanked him on visiting the office.

Mr. Arambepola and Mr. Vahedy discussed the matters of mutual interests.  Mr. Arambepola told Muslim Aid Country Director that he at ADPC has initiated the training course for Pakistan and Bangladesh for disaster response, preparedness and disaster reporting ethicists. He maintained that main participants of the said training course will be National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Health (MoH) and Pak Red Crescent, while rescue 1122 may be a part of programme, along with other selected organisations. American Red Cross has already been taken in as they have promised funding for the project on disaster preparedness.

Mr. Arambepola appreciated the improvement in disaster preparedness since 2003 on, and currently it reflected in Hunza, where local bodies and army worked efficiently and effectively through best possible coordination mechanism. He further briefed that ADPC is looking forward in building capacity of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government bodies in the areas of its own expertise.
While highlighting the preparedness training course, he said that it includes need assessment (housing and WASH mainly), developing an action plan on the same, implementation of the action plan, no professional light surgical rescue course and developing master trainers for the future.
“Course duration will be seven days in which a community will be selected to develop it into a model community. One urban and one rural community will be targeted, initially. Number of participants from each country will be three. The plan may be initiated in October, he informed”. In this regard, donor identification is also being carried out. He urged Muslim Aid Country Director to raise a collaborative hand towards ADPC, as he looks Muslim Aid a potential funding agency for carrying out the activity.
Mr. Falak Nawaz, official of National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), Rizwan Baig, Programme Manager Emergency & Healthcare, Rubina Mazhar and Atiqa Khan were also present in the meeting. In the end Muslim Aid Country Director presented a shield to the distinguished guest.