TAXILA: The Punjab Emergency Service Rescue 1122 Attock conducted a challenge for community emergency response teams (CERTs) on Sunday to improve their capacity and develop resilient communities.

Addressing participants at the opening ceremony, District Emergency Officer Ali Hasnain said the objective of the challenge was to provide a platform to volunteers in order to engage in healthy competition and enhance coordination among teams and services for the management of emergencies and safety promotion.

He said Rescue 1122 did not just provide emergency victims with the basic right to provide timely emergency care but also believed in saving lives and changing minds.

He said CERTs had been established at almost every union council throughout the district, adding that the winning community volunteer teams of the inter-union council competition would participate in a national event with the complete turnout and district flag assigned to the districts.

He further said to establish safer communities, Rescue 1122 was implementing the community safety programme, which included capacity building of community emergency response teams, a school safety programme and training of citizens in lifesaving skills.

He said the competition was held to assess, analyse, rate and encourage the best CERTs and rescue scouts based on the imparted emergency response skills at the district level. Furthermore, this challenge would definitely enhance the professional emergency response capacity and develop disaster-resilient communities in the country, he added.

Ali Hasnain said different competitions included management of mass casualty incidents (MCI), light search and rescue, basic life support and first aid and response to fire and water emergencies.

The spokesperson for District Emergency Services, Aaamir Nawaz, told journalists that Rescue 1122 had started the programme involving rural union councils to train young volunteers from local communities in handling any emergency situation immediately.

He said the best teams in the challenge would be awarded on International Volunteer Day.

Responding to a question, he said the competition was first organised in 2017 to improve operational capacity, disaster emergency response skills and coordination among teams at the local level.

Responding to another question, he said volunteers had been provided a platform to work with government organisations through Punjab Emergency Service Rescue 1122 for effective disaster preparedness, response, and prevention, adding that this forum also helps the volunteers bridge the gap between community and government organisations.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2023