The Concern Universal Country Office - in collaboration with St. Joseph’s Family Farm Centre (SJFFC) in Bwiam, on Thursday 18th December 2008 trained thirty stakeholders on the Disaster Risk Reduction Project for communities in the  Western Region.

 The project is funded by OXFAM-America at a cost of $5000 under its Building Disaster Response Capacity in The Gambia project. Speaking at the opening of the two-day training held at the SJFFC head office, Yankuba Manneh, the project manager, spoke at length on the objectives of the said project.

According to Manneh, the project is meant to strengthen, develop and support the institutional  capacity at national, regional and community levels. He said the training is also meant to enable stakeholders to adequately and promptly response to disaster affected communities while ensuring systematic incorporation of sustainable risk reduction approaches into the design implementation of the said project.

“St. Joseph’s Family Farm Centre values genuine partnership with communities to provide support to vulnerable groups in a non-discriminatory manne,r”  Manneh posited. The Concern Universal manager of The DRR project, Ebou Faye Njie commended SJFFC and other partners for their collaboration .

Faye said it is the strategy of his organization to improve and increase the response of communities to disaster and risk reduction strategies. Faye further called for adequate disaster prevention and noted the need to have structures and plans to respond to disasters. He reiterated that the project is focused on improving the capacities of partners in the country. He said that an emergency coordinating centre will be set up for disaster response.

The training was moderated by Foday Kanyi, Disaster Risk Reduction focal person of the Methodist Mission Agricultural project.