Isabel and Central Islands Province Provincial Emergency Response Team Induction Training.
Participants from Central Islands and Isabel Provinces concluded a week long induction training on emergency response at Poro village in Isabel Province on 18th June 2021.
The Training, organised and conducted by the National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) in collaboration with the respective Provincial Governments, Development partners and stakeholders is geared toward building the capacity of the National and Provincial Governments to manage disasters. It is part of the whole Solomon Islands Governments ongoing preparedness and response to COVID-19.
Given the proximity of the two provinces to Honiara apart from Guadalcanal province, any community spread of COVID-19 needs to be controlled in a coordinated manner hence the need to have trained Provincial Emergency Response Teams (PERT) equipped with the right knowledge stationed in the two provinces.
The training is conducted in line with the concept stipulated in the National Disaster Management Plan 2018, the National Disaster Council (NDC) arrangement legally approved by the Solomon Islands Government as the national coordination arrangement under the National Disaster Operations Committee (N-DOC) and Provincial Disaster Operations Committee (P-DOC) under the current SoPE, regulation 2021.
PERT forms the response mechanism of the NDC at the Provincial level. The training ensures that the SIG new approach of establishing pool of emergency and disaster responders trained on a common methodology across the country for immediate deployment.
Speaking on behalf of the NDC and NDMO, Mr George Baragamu thanked the Governments of both provinces for availing their officers to participate in this very important training. He said it is a demonstration of the seriousness the two Governments place in the country’s effort to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
In bringing the training down to the village level Mr Baragamu said “Whilst most Government and provincial coordinated training are held either in Honiara or the provincial Centres, this particular one was brought down to the village level to give the opportunity to seventy percent of the people in the country who live in the villages feel part of the Governments effort to keep our country safe from the pandemic”.
He said the idea further demonstrates the Governments effort to keep the economy afloat by way of spreading the financial benefits of such training to the wider community by way of provision of catering services, accommodation, fuel and retail shop services. It also served to test the capacity of our rural communities to host events that they are normally seen to be incapable of hosting.
In this regard Poro community has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that hosting of such events is not outside of their reach by delivering the backup support to successfully run the training.
MECDM Press