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The Center for Disaster, Risk, Management and Development Studies at the University of Maiduguri has confirmed the receipt of over N14 million worth of equipment from Save the Children International for weather monitoring and other activities.
The Director of the Centre, Prof. Aliyu Monguno made this disclosure on Thursday during the commemoration of 2024 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction at Muhammad Indimi Hall, University of Maiduguri
The director said that this year’s event with the theme: “The Role of Education in Promoting and Empowering Youths on Disaster Free Future” was funded by the SCI, as a mark of their commitment to promoting disaster risk awareness
In his words, “Save the Children has been graciously supporting the centre. Just two months back, it supported our center with equipment worth N14 million and a GIS license in order for us to help in monitoring the weather. So put together, the combined cost of equipment is worth N14 million.
“We are so grateful to them for this partnership. Now, we are taking it to another level. This time around, they have also funded the International Day for Disaster Risk, 2024. It is a successful collaboration,” Monguno disclosed further.
The director who noted that the Centre has trained over 1,000 students in disaster risk management, stressed, “So far, since inception as a centre, we have been able to train over 1,000 Students with professional masters in disaster risk management, and 111 students at the post graduate diploma level, so altogether, we are talking of nearly 1200 at the post graduate level that we have been able to train,” he explained
He also explained, “Beyond that, we are also thinking very deeply that very soon, we will start a Bachelor of Science degree in Disaster Risks Management together with the Department of Geography.”
Earlier, Senior Early Warning and Anticipatory Action Manager for Save the Children International, Osebi Adams remarked that the essence of the International Day for Disaster Risk is to promote the knowledge of disaster risk reduction among young people to guarantee a safer future
Adams pointed out, “as you can see, today we have various stakeholders from the National Emergency Management Agency, University of Maiduguri, members of civil society organisation, UN agency, local and international NGOs, most importantly, children from various schools because as I said earlier, it is about promoting the knowledge among young people.
“Through this programme, we are creating awareness. Because as we are today, the world needs to be disaster ready. We all saw what happened recently, that is, the flooding some weeks back. No one expected it despite all the measures and systems put in place. We need to be better disaster resilient. It is like we are wearing bulletproof against disaster,” he noted.
