Umunthu Plus says effective logistics and warehouse management is crucial in handling relief items during disasters.
The organisation’s monitoring and evaluation manager Lumbani Mgula said this on Tuesday in Nkhata Bay during a three-day logistics and warehouse management training for district council frontline workers from the Northern Region.
He said it was imperative that frontline workers are conversant with skills to prevent damage to property during disasters.
“We equipped the officers with skills to handle food and non-food relief items during disasters and also how they can manage warehouses to prevent the items from destruction before reaching their end users,” said Mgula.
He also said they conducted the training following an assessment that the Department of Disaster and Management Affairs conducted in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport and Public Works and World Food Programme (WFP) which showed that some frontline workers in councils were struggling to handle relief food and non-food items.
“We believe that the participants will use the skills to prevent the relief items get damaged while on the waiting list,” he said.
One of the participants, Evelyn Chirwa, a stores officer from Mzimba North under M’mbelwa District Council, said the training will help them understand warehouse management.
“We were previously not able to handle commodities accordingly because we were not oriented on how to handle those things. These skills are necessary for us,” she said.
Umunthu Plus, which implements initiatives such as capacity building, health, education, gender protection conducted the training with financial support from WFP
