Tagged as: emergency response

Reproductive Health Uganda strengthens disaster emergency preparedness plans

Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) has expanded its plans to prepare employees to respond in times of man-made and natural catastrophes in order to deliver better services to Ugandans.

The need to improve RHU staff awareness of how to deal with crises was recognized by Dr. Peter Ibembe, RHU Director of Programs, and Annet Kyarimpa, RHU Manager of Safe Motherhood, which led to the planning.

“It’s critical to recognize that an organization is prone to calamities and to plan ahead of time,” Dr. Ibembe added.

According to Kyarimpa, getting the relevant information, contributing, and planning for disaster preparation requires a coordinated effort on the part of the organization’s departments, units, and directorates (EPP).

When an emergency occurs, this will advise RHU on what to offer and how to provide integrated sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services.

“Common knowledge of duties and responsibilities in humanitarian and disaster response is crucial for workers,” Annet Kyarimpa explains.

For this reason, more than ten RHU employees gathered in Mbarara for a week to prepare an EPP that would help the company respond more efficiently in times of disaster.

The services of Seema Manohar, an EPP consultant, were obtained with the help of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Planned Parenthood Federation – Africa Regional (IPPFAR).

Seema underlines the need of having a separate strategy for each crisis, whether it is long-term or short-term.

But, as Seema pointed out, “we must remember that emergency response is a process and that we must always be prepared, since how quickly you respond to a tragedy counts.”

Edward Kiggundu, RHU Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, noted shortage of resources like as water, land, pasture, firewood, and food as sources of conflict among the vulnerable, underserved, and disadvantaged groups that RHU seeks to assist while delivering a study report. This he says affects delivery, access and follow up for those in need of integrated SRHR services from RHU.

RHU personnel and the consultant finished the emergency preparation planning meeting by putting up a draft document that will be used to direct operations during an emergency.

Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.

RHU Trains Staff in Emergency Preparedness and Response Planning

Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) has trained staff in emergency preparedness and response planning training skills.

Dr. Peter Ibembe, RHU Director of Programs says that the three-day training program held at Fairway Hotel in Kampala aimed at preparing RHU staff with emergency preparedness tools and guidelines that are internationally recognized and can be adapted to the Ugandan local contexts like risk assessment guidelines, security programming in humanitarian settings and drafting emergency plans.

He said that as the trainees acquire the skills, the most important question posed to us is, how ready are we to respond to emergencies?

Robinah Nambooze, RHU Governance and Human Resource Manager (GHRM), says that the training is important, especially in line with building the capacity of RHU senior management staff to initiate a timely, effective and coordinated SRHR response in crisis and humanitarian situations. The training also provided a common understanding of systems, structures, resources, and human resource priorities, roles, and responsibilities in emergency response.

Annet Kyarimpa, RHU Manager Safe Motherhood says the emergency training is implemented by RHU with support from the UKaid, approaches in complex and challenging environments for sustainable sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (ACCESS) project.

The ACCESS project was developed to produce a set of scalable, evidence-based, participatory approaches to support and engage marginalized and under-served populations in complex and challenging environments, to claim and access comprehensive sexual and reproductive health (SRH)information and services.

In this regard, it targets the more vulnerable and underserved populations such as urban poor, rural populations, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and young people.

Over the years, RHU has expanded its SRH service delivery network within the humanitarian setting by establishing physical facilities and outreach services in Rhino-camp in Arua district, 19 refugee settlements in Adjumani, and Parolinya refugee settlement in Obongi district. Other areas of operation or interventions are the Kyangwali refugee settlement In Kikuube district, Bidi-Bidi in Yumbe district, and Lamwo district.