NGO Trains Journalists on Disaster Reduction in Sokoto State

By Ismail Umar, Sokoto

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A Non-governmental organisation “Christian Aid Nigeria Project” has organised a two-day training for Journalists on early warning, early response on disaster risk reduction and reportage in Sokoto state.

 

The training which was conducted at Dankani Guest Hotel, Sokoto was aimed at creating more awareness on how to take adequate measures to reduce disaster floods.

 

In her remarks, the Christian Aid Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning Manager, Talatu Aliyu, said the training was to strengthen media capacity on early warning and early response and other disaster risk reduction reporting.

 

“We know the fact that these issues of disaster risk reduction are underreported and sometimes not even reported at all.

 

“We also understand that most of the time people are not even aware of issues regarding measures to be taken to curtail disaster risk occurrences.

 

“Therefore, for us in the Christian Aid Nigeria it is an opportunity for us to train the media to help us drive the awareness process on the measures to employ on disaster reduction among communities in the country,” Talatu noted.

 

She commended the Sokoto state government on its commitment towards partnering with Christian Aid to curtail disaster risk across 23 local government areas of the state.

 

Talatu Aliyu further urged the participants to use the lesson learned to be beneficial to them and the larger communities, especially in the reduction of floods across the state.

 

Also speaking, a facilitator with Christian Aid Nigeria Country Project, Mr Omobhude Kingsley, who presented a paper on how to use Geographic Information System (GIS) to reduce disaster especially flood, emphasised the need to use the application as a global instrument used to get relevant information on how to reduce disaster, especially flood.

 

He further said GIS helps to gather relevant information in the areas of security, agriculture, health and transportation, particularly in planning for development.

 

He called on media organisations to always key into geographic information systems by training the younger ones to be more active and knowledgeable on the application for effective operations.

 

Dominica Nwabufo

 

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