KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29: Rescue Union (RU), a coalition of 42 non governmental organisations and humanitarian bodies, says it is ready and on standby to help out with flood relief measures in the event of any flood situation in the country with the looming monsoon period.
Its founder, Johnny Yap said RU, which collaborates with relevant government agencies and units, will focus on the distribution of basic items such as clean water, food, and medicines to flood victims both at flood relief centres and in affected areas where they will be able to access.
Its four-wheel drive team will also help in areas where urgent help is needed such as helping with evacuating the victims to safer grounds. These four-wheel drive vehicles would be able to go through areas where the water level has risen above 1 feet and inundated with waters standing two to four feet.
Rescue Union, which was officially launched in August this year, was earlier a loose coalition of NGOS that had worked together and with government agencies in rescue as well as relief efforts during the devastating floods in the country including the 2021/2022 floods in various districts in Selangor, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Johor and other states as well as the floods earlier this year in Johor.
“We work closely with Angkatan Pertahanan Awam Malaysia (APM) during the floods. While, earlier, some of our groups also helped in relief work with boats, now we will concentrate on the supply of essential items to victims and also post-flood cleaning works,” he said.
In the past, many volunteers had made their own efforts to use boats and reach these people although they were not trained for such rescue work and had taken the risks. This was especially in areas where floods were unusual events and people were generally unprepared and not trained for such work and safety was a major concern.
“This time, although we can share information and seek help but the real rescue efforts will be best undertaken by those trained to handle such situation and RU’s focus will be on providing the support needed.
Yap said the organisation has been also beefing up its manpower, mostly volunteers, preparing them through various programmes so that they are trained for helping out during disasters.
“Manpower is a major challenge during these periods, so we started looking for more volunteers, including youths through their schools to train them for services like registering flood victims at relief centres, coordination and the dissemination of information in the network of RU members as well as assisting the elderly victims in the centres.
“These students are already members of existing organisations such as Scouts, St John Ambulance in their schools and we get the student representatives from these bodies and make arrangements such as permissions from the schools to provide training to these students. We have no plans to form any new organisations but work together with existing ones.
“The government has been doing a great deal for flood victims in the country, but there are so many areas to cover and it continues engaging voluntary organisations like ours as well for further reach to provide assistance to all those affected.”
On challenges encountered during the floods, Yap said one of them included people fearing to leave their homes even when they have been advised to evacuate before the floods hit. It becomes even more difficult to reach them when the flood water level rises too high and help for them can be delayed.
As part of their services, Yap said RU also make the efforts to ensure proper distribution of the items meant for flood victims. This is to ensure that there is enough supply for all victims. There have been situations when some unscrupulous people have taken advantage of the situation and the intended items do not reach the victims, he explained.
For those who wish to know more about RU , please check out the following link: http://www.rescueunion.org
— WE