GIS ends 5-day facilitators’ workshop for officers

 The Aflao Sector Com­mand of the Ghana Im­migration Service (GIS) has ended a five-day facilitators’ training workshop for 15 officers on Community Engagement and Policing (CEP).

It is to promote collaboration between members of the border communities and personnel of the GIS.

Jointly organised by the Public Affairs Department of the Aflao Sector Command in collabora­tion with the International Cen­tre for Safe Migration (ICSM), the programme was aimed at training the selected officers on CEP who would also train other staff of GIS at the Aflao Sector Command.

Speaking at the closing ceremony at Aflao in the Ketu-South Munic­ipality (KSM) of the Volta Region yesterday, the Aflao Sector Com­mander (ASC) of the GIS, Assis­tant Commissioner of Immigration (ACI) Mr Frederick Baah Doudu, said the community engagement and policing model was a proactive human-centred and participatory security approach, designed by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to help security services to build trust and support from the members of border com­munities in the discharge of their duties.

ACI Doudu said the programme would help deepen collaboration between the personnel of the Immigration Service and members of the border communities, which would enable them to appreciate the need for security and stressed that security should be regarded as a collective responsibility of all.

The Aflao Sector Commander commended the beneficiary offi­cers of the training workshop for availing themselves to be trained on modern strategies of commu­nity engagement and policing to promote good relationship, and ex­pressed the hope that the new skills acquired would impact positively on the members of the border communities.

The workshop which was facili­tated by the CEP focal person, who also doubled as the Public Affairs Officer (PAO) of the Aflao Sector Command, Deputy Superintendent of Immigration (DSI) Mr Justice Kudzo Normeshie, said the training workshop became necessary in view of the changing trend in security management, as it was important for personnel to become abreast of the times.

Mr Normeshie said the era where security officers worked in isolation from members of the community was over, therefore the strategic training programme had positioned personnel to provide security needs that were relevant to the border communities.

DSI Normeshie stressed that the programme had equipped officers to re-train other personnel of the command to become culturally, religiously and gender-responsive to the needs of members of the border communities.

The focal person and PAO con­tinued that the training was timely, since it would help members of the border communities to appreciate the need for peace during and after the 2024 general election as person­nel carried out their duties.

FROM SAMUEL AGBEWODE, AFLAO