By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: Humanitarian Response Facility (ERF) by ACTED, a France based NGO, was inaugurated in Garam Chashma of Lot Koh valley here on Friday which is aimed at to provide humanitarian support to the disaster prone populations during the emergencies of natural disasters when it becomes disconnected from the rest of the district.
Chitral Lower DC Naveed Ahmed formally inaugurated the ERF in a ceremony and appreciated the facility’s role in the hours of distress which gripped the local people hit by the natural disasters.
He said that due to the peculiar and immense topography of Chitral, it needs specially designed disaster risk reduction apparatus for which the government and the NGOs are in a good working relationship.
He stressed on the community members to familiarize themselves of the apparatus and instruments in the ERF so that in the hours of need, there may not be an issue of their usage and for this purpose, the youth folk should come forward imbibed with the spirit of volunteerism.
Earlier, the project manager of ACTED, Kamran Zeb told the gathering that after identifying the union councils of Garam Chashma, Kalash valleys and Mastuj highly vulnerable areas across Chitral, it was decided to put in place one ERF in each area provided with emergency response tool kits with the objective of enhancing the effective response capability.
“Supporting disaster prone populations is a priority for ACTED and we are committed to extending our projects to remote and not easily accessible area and by constructing these facilities we have taken a step towards achieving our objective”, he said.
He expressed his gratitude to the government of Khyber Pakhunkhwa for providing piece of land for the buildings and the government of United Kingdom for funding the project through its Department of International Development (DFID).
He said that as many as 78501 individuals will be benefited in 11000 households in the three union councils.
Representing the community, Muhammad Wali said that the importance of the facility is known to those who suffered and witnessed the devastating flash floods of 2015 which ravaged the area and isolated from the rest of the district for more than four weeks.
