Community Development for Peace (CDP), works to raise awareness for the first response to situations that are emergency & disaster management in the society of Bangladesh. The CDP has already arranged a number of seminars emphasizing thoughts on humans on their day-to-day disasters and how to tackle these scenarios while being calm. This workshop was demonstrated in a number of schools, madrasahs, colleges, and universities in Bangladesh. This time CDP organized a Workshop on “Emergency First Response & Disaster Management” at SouthEast University on 19th December 2022. This workshop was executed by experts from different fields the Department of Disaster Management (BRAC University), the President of Youth Club of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Fire Service & Civil Defence, the Assistant Director of PPDM, the Director of CPDS & Honourable Advisor/ Board of Trustees of Southeast University.
Throughout their lectures, all they intended was to raise awareness of how the first response in a time of disaster is crucial to saving lives and avoiding further casualties. This process enabled the students to visually get the idea while taking participants from among them so that a scenario could be presented and perceived.

The Workshop started with the opening welcome remarks by Tahnia Shadid, the director of CPDS, Southeast University. She introduced all the chief guests and welcomed them to the workshop. Her warm presence gave the workshop a good start.

Dr. Imon Chowdhooree assistant director of postgraduate programs in disaster management is an expert in the field of Disaster and rehabilitation due to the damages caused by the disaster. The discussion that Dr. Imon focused on, was encouraging students to focus and learn more skill sets in the field of Disaster Management. Such training could help the students further themselves as a civilian and also in their career segments as well.

Dr. Arefin Rahman Himel President of the Youth Club of Bangladesh (YCB) who was awarded the Queen Elizabeth’s Award in 2018 demonstrated all the possible solutions to basic first aid that one may need to provide on a situation of disaster. These steps are fundamental procedures anyone can carry out if they know the right way of implementing them. His lecture was intriguing and showed how a small first aid kit that is less than BDT 100 could possibly save lives or at least prevent further interventions. The kits were also distributed among everyone present in the workshop. The training was carried out with enthusiastic participants making the whole process enjoyable.

Muhammad Ferdaus stepped in right after the training session giving a brief lecture on the importance of Disaster Management and how much it’s important in our day-to-day lives. Being then Program Director of PPDM, BRAC University he explained how his humble beginnings started while helping people who got affected by cyclone Sidor and how his experience in the Rana plaza incident helped him to achieve milestones in Disaster Management. His backstory enabled us to see that it takes a small initiative to start a big change.

Brig. Gen. Engr. Ali Ahmed Khan (Retd.) who is the former Director General of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence gave a brief lecture on his experience in the field of Disaster Management and how he had to face a crucial situation while the Rana plaza disaster took place and how this enabled him to furthermore get involved in disaster management and first response while serving at Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence. He emphasized how important for us to individually learn the basic tactics to function in necessary crucial situations.

Finally, the most awaited speech was given by Prof. Dr. ANM Meshquat Uddin who is the Honorable Adviser and Board of Trustees, at Southeast University. He wished luck to all the people working for this workshop and hoped to see this kind of workshop in the future which will educate laymen to learn a lot.

The Workshop ended well with giving medals to all the lecturers and honorable guests while taking pictures. Certificates were distributed among all the participants.

Report writing credit: MD Farhad Jaman.