By Sukuoluhle Ndlovu
Masvingo – Masvingo based Non-Governmental Organisation Bhaso is holding a week-long workshop on training humanitarian workers in Psycho-Social Support as they are now in the recovery response stage in helping the survivors of the Cyclone Idai I Masvingo Province.
The workshop is being held under the theme, Training for Humanitarian workers in Psycho-Social Support which is being implemented by BHASO.
The recovery response is going t run for 12 months and the project will see them go into communities targeting those who were affected and concertise them n how to be prepared for future disasters.
In an interview with Bhaso Director, Simbarashe Mahaso, he said they saw the necessity of going into the communities and help the people in the communities and especially those who were affected as not everyone has an overall insight of what disasters are and have the knowledge on how to equip themselves from these disasters.
“People do not have adequate information about disasters and people need awareness for them to stay alert and know how they can overcome disasters. If people are warned they should act accordingly and not act ignorant. But this cannot be done if the people do not have adequate information, so we want to go into the communities and provide them with adequate information.
“The people in the communities are the ones affected so that is the reason why we want to go to them and help them understand because now there is also climate change and this means more disasters to come in the future, so livelihoods must know about this and they should be equipped with disaster reduction skills,” said Mahaso.
To enable the risk reduction skills and make sure the survivors of the cyclone get adequate counselling both emotionally and mentally, they are training teachers and religious leaders.
“So far we have trained 200 teachers and we want to train more teachers who will help in hazard mapping in helping us to be prepared for future disasters in the country. We are also going to engage those in the religious sectors; their services are greatly needed in times like these, we need their spiritual support is of vital importance,” he said.
Bhaso will see themselves visiting the affected communities and have dialogues with those who survived them on how they are coping up. They want to support them with different support apart from the physical needs like food and clothes but emotional and mental support to those who were affecting as many lost families and are finding it difficult to face reality.
This is not the first workshop Bhaso has done; it has done different workshops in Zaka, Bikita and Gutu with social services from March and this is when they trained 200 teachers from Zaka and Gutu.
