The Ghana Red Cross Society (GRCS) has started a pilot communication strategy project in five communities in the Upper East Region aimed at reducing disaster risk.

The project is been carried out in collaboration with the Swiss Red Cross involves mounting speaker polls through which Community Disaster Preparedness and Response Team (CDPRT) volunteers in the communities could share messages on disaster risk management.

The project which is expected to last for as long as the volunteers can manage it is expected to give better services, to reach all remote communities and settlements that need such information to manage, reduce risks, and vulnerability, since the traditional media could not do that.

Mr Paul Wooma, the Upper East Regional Manager of GRCS said this when he presented some logistics to the Community Disaster Preparedness and Response Team (CDPRT) volunteers to aid them in their duties.

The initiative was part of the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Programme of the GRCS which seeks to identify hazard-prone areas and prepare response strategies to ensure that its impact on people and their livelihoods are lessened.

The items presented to the volunteers included pickaxes, spades, megaphones, cutlasses, and Wellington boots.

The rest are bicycles, rakes, hand gloves, wheelbarrows, and speaker polls. Mr Wooma said the items were strategic considering the wake of the novel Coronavirus when people needed to take cleanliness more seriously to protect themselves against the disease.

Communities within the Bongo district that are benefitting from the pilot project are Aniakunkua, Azoosidana, Atonobugrim, Akeeba, and Akana. Bon-Naba Baba Salifu Atamale Lemyaarum, the Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area commended GRCS for its humanitarian works in the area. He said a nation that did not take disaster risk management seriously was bound to be doomed as disaster could not be ruled out completely in the world.

Bon-Naba Lemyaarum said tree planting was a serious component in disaster risk reduction as it had the potential to restore the degraded environment in the area and urged community members to incorporate tree planting into their daily activities.

Mr Peter Ayimbisa, the District Chief Executive of Bongo, commended the CDPRT volunteers for their voluntary services and asked that the items be used to the benefit of the whole district.

He said although it was the duty of government to provide the local assemblies with such items, the government could not do it exclusively.