Sukabumi, Indonesianpost.com – The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) has appointed seven regional PMI offices to become centers of excellence for the development of Red Cross Youth (PMR) and the Disaster Safe Education Units (SPAB).
“Those PMIs serve as role models and become reference and example for other city and district PMIs in Indonesia,” Head of PMR and Volunteer of PMI Sasongko Tedjo stated on Saturday.
The PMI offices at the district and city levels that have been appointed are Sukabumi City PMI (West Java), Kebumen District PMI (Central Java), Sleman District PMI (Yogyakarta), Buleleng District PMI (Bali), Malang City PMI (East Java), East Jakarta City PMI (Jakarta), and Cilegon City PMI (Banten).
Tedjo said that the establishment of centers of excellence is part of the efforts to respond to new challenges in handling disasters and health crises.
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He emphasized the importance of improving the mitigation capacity of the community, including students, in an effort to reduce disaster risks.
He assessed that the students should be trained to be prepared to face the impacts of disasters and that educational units should have disaster mitigation and management plans.
Meanwhile, the Head of the Education, Training, Research and Development Agency of PMI, Arifin M. Hadi, stated that PMI had created a memorandum of understanding for cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology regarding SPAB empowerment.
“For that reason, the Central PMI has appointed seven regional PMIs to become models, examples,” he remarked.
Hadi noted that the seven PMIs had earlier undergone assessment and verification processes to evaluate their readiness to become the centers of excellence for PMR and SPAB development.