Karachi: A week long Search and Rescue Training Program, conducted by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) in cooperation with the IHH Humanitarian Aid Foundation Disaster Academy and the Sindh Scouts Association, was completed with the closing program and certificate distribution ceremony held at the Sindh Scouts Training Center.
In addition to the search and rescue volunteers participating in training, Turkish Consul General Cemal Sangu, Former Chief Secretary of Sindh Government and Province Commissioner of Sindh Scouts, Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah, TIKA Karachi Program Coordinator Halil Ibrahim Baiaran and many guests attended the closing session of the training program. The closing program started with a search and rescue exercise carried out by Turkish educators and training participants.
Drawing attention to the importance of search and rescue training in his speech, Cemal Sangu, Karachi Consul General of Türkiye, expressed that they are very pleased to have shared Türkiye’s experiences in this field with brotherly country Pakistan.
Former Chief Secretary of the Government of Sindh, Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah, expressed the importance of saving lives and reminded that “saving a life is like saving all humanity”, and thanked Türkiye and TIKA for their support in search and rescue training.
TIKA Coordinator Halil Ibrahim Baiaran stated that the training was a beginning and that training in this field will continue and thanked all the institutions that contributed, especially Sindh Scouts. Drawing attention to climate change and recent disasters, Baiaran added that he was pleased that two friendly countries, Pakistan and Türkiye, cooperated for disaster resilience.
Rabia, a search and rescue volunteer who attended the training, stated in her speech that before starting this training, she imagined herself saving people in the mountain that she learned much more than that in this training, and that she was looking forward to the next training.
The closing program ended with the distribution of certificates to more than fifty search and rescue volunteers participating from different cities of Sindh province. The training will continue with Advanced Level of Wilderness Search and Rescue Training, water and urban search and rescue training.
Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency has carried out and continues to carry out these trainings in many countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Bangladesh, ESH, and Georgia.
