Emergency Preparedness and Response Programme 1.0 Caritas Makeni is the relief and development agency of the Diocese of Makeni in Sierra Leone’s Northern Province. Focusing on young people, the organization facilitated the reintegration of child soldiers and became the leading child protection agency of the Northern Province during the conflict. The agency provides trauma counseling, community peace-building programmes and supports young people to develop and enhance skills. Four key areas of Caritas Makeni’s work are livelihoods, health, education and emergencies. 

Caritas Makeni’s operational mandate is in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, an area that borders with the Republic of Guinea. Since the death of President Lansana Conte in December 2008, the country has been ruled by a military junta whose respect for human rights remains questionable.  On the 28th of September 2009, over 150 peaceful demonstrators were massacred by the security forces in the Capital Conakry for merely expressing their views against the intention of the then junta leader – Capt Moussa Dadis Kamara – to stand as a candidate for proposed elections. Taking a cue from the international community’s displeasure against this massacre, the junta has now set up a transitional administration with a civilian Prime Minister to oversee democratic elections proposed on the 27th of June 2010. 

Learning from past experiences in its operational areas and especially given the country’s history in poor governance, CAFOD in partnership with Caritas Makeni is putting in place appropriate measures to address any unforeseen humanitarian crises that may occur before, during and after these proposed elections. The primary objective is to strengthen Caritas Makeni’s capacity to respond swiftly to humanitarian crises by identifying and training selected communities in strategic border entry points on how to respond to and provide interim care for any eventual refugee influx within their communities. The communities’ capacity to provide interim care facilities such as transit camps, etc would be assessed and strengthened where they already exist to provide basic humanitarian assistance.

2.0 Rationale, Purpose and relevance
In the past two year’s period of funding, Caritas Makeni has been supported to develop a strategic plan and conduct baseline survey and needs assessment. These processes have now been completed and the strategic plan approved by the board to be operational. The needs assessment and baseline survey conducted will now inform Caritas realistic areas of interventions linking to the strategic plan developed. However, the sustainability of any such interventions would depend on the ability of the beneficiary communities to maintain a level of stability and have appropriate community-driven mechanisms to adequately respond to potential external interruptions that may affect their daily lives. 

Having gone through a decade of civil war, these communities are all too familiar with the repercussions of spontaneous cross-border influx of refugees and the effects it could have on the resident host communities/populations. With the already precarious and highly volatile situation unfolding within the neighbouring communities, their capacity to respond to emergency situations should be strengthened through awareness-raising and community action plans on disaster mitigation, preparedness and response. This could be achieved by supporting Caritas Makeni with disaster risk hazards, vulnerability and capacity assessment methodologies to help these communities increase their resilience, and to be more prepared and equipped to deal with the immediate aftermath of emergency situations.   

3.0 Project Goal: To strengthen Caritas Makeni’s capacity in Emergency Preparedness and Response by working with disaster-sensitive communities to increase their resilience on disaster mitigation, preparedness and response.

Objectives
To improve Caritas Makeni’s disaster risk vulnerability and assessment capacity 
To train communities to identify and assess hazards and vulnerability triggers/indicators 
To train communities to develop disaster risk reduction strategies/contingency plans 
To facilitate communities to form/establish Disaster Response Committees (DRC’s) 
To facilitate the formation/establishment of community disaster response volunteers