A terrible accident in Mpumalanga

This is the terrible accident in Mpumalanga on Moloto road near Kwaggafofontein on Monday 11 November where a bus collided with a truck and 11 people where critically injured, 3 died at a hospital while 26 died at the incident scene.

The bus being taken away after the accident.

Strong wind storms in Kanana

Kanana is a very small and lovely township which is less vulnerable to most of disasters that occur in other places. It is not easily affected by disasters but what happened in front of my eyes yesterday (13 November 2013) was so touching after the strong winds in the evening took two shacks down and about six of them roofs destroyed. It was  really a sleepless night for most people as most people don't have their Emergency Operation Plan which could have been more helpful to them.

Finishing our first module for the second year

It has been really good since we started our second year, we have just finished our first module which was about community and family preparedness.  We really enjoyed the module since well the module was more focused on our daily lives. 
We even did the preparedness surveys and it made it more interesting because we realized that most of our parents have the same mindset about emergency preparedness. They believe that there is nothing to prepare for. The only important phase for them is response because they think that nothing is hard to deal with, '' God is the creator of everything''. They don’t understand that all the faces of emergency/disaster management are important, more especially Preparedness as it is the foundation of emergency/disaster management. It is a disaster-readiness function and includes pre-disaster planning, training, higher education, exercises, drills, standards, technology, outreach and partnership.

Kenya's Westgate Mall attack

Officials trying to help people escape during  Kenyan Mall attack

Kenyan Mall burning

Some injured and dead people inside Kenya Mall.

The difference made by service blog

The service blog made me to feel or realize that I am making difference in my community. Every time when I get into my class my, learners become so happy. They are free to ask questions and the participation is so good. At first I thought it was going to be difficult for me to teach them because teaching is not in my blood, what I like is saving lives (Bio) but am doing well. I thought that they were not going to listen to me because am not their are teacher and am so young. You know children have this tendency of that they are not going to be taught by a younger teacher  like me, but my learners took me like their are own mathematics teacher, they don’t have that tendency. Every time when I ask questions they give me answers. They even raise up hands to tell me that they don’t understand. In them I see the doctors, teachers, etc of tomorrow. 

Our Dedicated Ladies of WDMCC

From left: Dikeledi Ramatladi, Mary Semoisi, Tsholofelo Gaborokwe, Nthabiseng Rapulumo, Refilwe Khoza and Maditaba Ramokanate

Ladies of World Disaster Management Community College at Are-fenyeng Primary doing their community service. They are loved and cherished by learners at this school. Learners cannot to wait see them in front of them everyday.
I love the reception we are getting from the principal, teachers and all the learners. Learners regard us as their teachers and give us the same respect as they give to their everyday teachers. I love the way they keep their uniform: They are distinguished in their uniform.
The school's environment is so clean that one cannot say it's a primary environment. It is these elements and many others positives that we come here everyday and give our services to these learners while we are still studying towards our Associate Degree in Emergency Management.

Our Mentoring Program is underway

Tsholofelo Gaborokwe giving Math lesson to Are-fenyeng Primary School learners during our Mentoring Program.
We are making difference in our community. Share with us some of the initiatives that you or your community is taking to make a difference in people's lives.

More pictures are on the World Disaster Management Community College Facebook page. Please like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter for more and updates, @WDMCC.

THE FINAL EXAM, 2013

Honestly speaking, the exam was not that difficult as I expected it to be. We knew most of the answers to questions that appeared in that exam because had we revised all the independent studies that we did this year together as a class. I think that was the trick that made me understand more about the studies that we did. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my classmates for helping each other. Like they usual say “every finish line is a beginning of a new race”.

I admit the race has been long and tiring but it has been worth it and I can't wait for the second year which will be my last year, then I will be doing my thing at Disaster/ Risk Management Centre as qualified Associate Emergency Manager.

The Essay Writing

The emergency management essay was a bit challenging but I was very exited  to write it because I as a young and up coming emergency manager  shows that I have action plans for my community. The essay gave me a chance to  be creative and responsible about my community and it also gave me some ideas on how to plan because I know a little about planning for an emergency, especially for my community. The students were very excited about writing this essay, especially when they found out that they will be writing this essay for their community. It felt like reality and it gave me a clear picture on how to write a comprehensive document to address my community.

Know Your Place

It is common senses that everyone should love, respect, know and care for themselves before they can do so to others other people can do the same about them. It also begins at home. 
Most of the things we learn from our homes. Some we learn from school, colleges or universities. Some people like to travel to other countries so they can know more about them. Some look for the information from books, magazines, newspapers or through the internet, or any source that is available to them. Other people do so without knowing much about their own country or the place in which they live. How much do you know about your country or the place in which you live?

 We, students WDMCC, have added information about our township, Kanana, in wikipedia. You can check it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanana,_North_West. This shows that we know about our township and we encourage everybody to find more about their countries and the places in which they live.
The information on this page will not only give people more information about Kanana, it will also assist emergency managers in times of emergencies or disasters.

BOSTON MARATHON ATTACK

What happened in Boston is a huge tragedy, so many people were injured, three people lost their lives and some of the buildings were destroyed.  The Boston marathon is an international event that unites all countries but what happened tore them apart. We hope that people who are responsible for this disaster should be held accountable for the terrible thing that they did. Some people are heartless, selfish and they are ignorant because the impact of this disaster caused peoples careers. The sad part of it is that children were involved and had to witness this terrible incident, now they have to live their lives in fear.

We hope and pray that everyone gets the best medical care especially the children.

Revising for final exam

We have been preparing ourselves for the final exam that we are going to write for our first year and we are working together as a team to revise the FEMA tests that we wrote. So far we have been working well and I am sure that we are going to nail this exam with high marks. This show how positive we are to make it through to graduate and be professional emergency managers, we have a long way to go because we still young and ambitious. My follower students let’s not let this opportunity to pass us by while we still got it, so let’s grab it with both hands and make use of it with lots of effort.

Big up to all the students who are still attending and willing to make their dreams come true regardless of the challenges that they face in their everyday lives.       

Where are young Emergency/Disaster Managers?

Emergency/Disaster Management is one of the courses that are emerging in recent years, especially in African countries. Well, in some African countries is still to implemented. Out of 23 plus universities in South Africa, only one offer Masters in Emergency Management, University of Free State. Thanks to World Disaster Management Community College (WDMCC) in Kanana which just started in 2012 for offering Associate Degree in this course.
I have talked to, met and know many Emergency Managers and still in communication with them. Most of them, if not all, are old or can I say, experienced. This brings to me the question: Where are the young Emergency Managers? Is this course only for elderly people only? I hope not.

New York City and South Africa, Kanana in WDMCC are trying to bridge that gap. I hope all the students can start realizing that we should make something to grow in this field. I am happy for all WDMCC students and soon to be the learners in the new emergency school to be opened in New York. Big up to all the founders of these schools.  

being back from long Easter holidays

A big thank you to everyone who is involved in this college for making this happen because if it wasn’t because of their efforts, their hard work and the light that they have brought to brighten our future, we wouldn’t be here today. As we are about to finish our first year, we are hoping to complete all the work so that we can graduate in just over a year's time to get our Associate Degree. It really feels good to be back from the holidays because we are just polishing the few work that is left behind as almost everyone is done with the FEMA tests. I really can’t wait for that to happen and I thank god for giving us the wonderful people who have started this college. They have made us realize that we have the abilities and the potential to make it in life.         

FIRST QUARTER, SECOND SEMESTER

Honestly speaking I don’t know where to begin. Everything is going as planned since Mr. Landon left. It has been a challenge for me personally because he is no longer around. I always expected help from him.He pushed me to complete my assignments and now that he is no longer around it has been a little tough. It has been a learning curve for me. I learnt to be independent, self-motivated and to cope on my own.

Another good thing about this semester is that we had a fire training class with Mr. Steven Mpato who is the division officer of the fire department in Klerksdorp. The lessons were about evacuation and classifications of fire. During these lessons one of the things I picked was that fire drills are very important they ensure that everybody knows what to do if a fire occurs. Schools, businesses and homes should practice this at least twice a year.

During the lessons I also learnt that blind or people who use wheelchairs can help you evacuate safely during a fire because they have alternative routes. All in all it has been both challenging and awesome at the same time. Everyone in the class managed to complete all the FEMA tests and the assignments that Mrs. Valerie Lucus sent.

The one thing I love is that we have grown to be a family, we love and look out for one another. Yes we do have some disagreements but we work them out as a family.

SMART, BIG, AND FAST

Those are the three words that describe this college.

Special thanks to the following people:

Ms. Jan Paschal

Ms. Kay Goss

Mr. Landon Densley

Mr. Dlamini

Dr. Zodwa Dlamini

Mr. Motaung

Mr. White Semoisi

For being the great leaders of this college

                                       HAPPY EASTER HOLIDAYS

                                                EVERY ONE

My view about the past two weeks

For the past two weeks since Mr.Landon is gone things has been quiet difficult for some of us because he was the person who will make sure that we all understand how to overcome some of the things that we found difficult, but it seems to be a challenge that we need to face on our own and I can tell we doing good so far with the lessons we get from Mrs.Valerie. They are really helpful because we as emergency managers cannot just think that we can make people to understand what they have been told to do and how to react during and after a disaster has strike. From the past lessons that we are getting from Mrs.Valerie, we can now see that communication is the most important tool to use during a disaster. By doing so we can serve our customers what they want to get and, not only during a disaster, but in everything that we are doing we should respect and know how to manage all the things that the people need to know and by doing so it will be easy for us and the people to use communication skills more effectively.

Communication is the most essential tool and it needs to have good communication strategies that will lead to good reactions after or during crisis. Since we are doing the lessons about communication, we find it important to know how to communicate with other organizations, respecting their cultures and their values. We find it easy when we have communication professionals such as the media, elected officials and business leaders, reason being that they make our job easily, quickly, accurately and effectively. When dealing with disasters it is always recommended to go smart, big and fast because saving life’s is our number one priority. With effective communication we can do all of the above.

Since we are doing communication lessons and receiving activities from Mrs.valerie, We sometimes need to search for information via internet and sometimes it is difficult for me to follow the links but, I can tell you guys with the help from White, I find it easy to do more research using internet because most of the lessons that we are doing we need to use internet to get the information we need, and now I know how to do it on my own. I really enjoy the lessons too much.                  

Effective Communication

Communication is a very important in emergency management. Sometimes it is very difficult to communicate as emergency managers; you may find that in some disasters there are no sources  of communication and that makes it very difficult for responders to reach the place where disaster have occurred and to reach disaster survivours, e.g. no signals on cell phones. Communication is good because is a good way of making response and recovery efforts more easily.

We are doing communication lessons which have opened my eyes and ears. I’ve learned that you don’t have to assume that people can hear or understand you. One should ensure that the message is delivered and received by the listeners, that way you can have the desired feedback. The lessons are also preparing us how to communicate with the media or public because as emergency manager is what we are going to do during and after disaster.    

Skyping with girls in Washington

Girls talk

I had a great day skyping with three intelligent young ladies and we spoke a lot about our different backgrounds and our lives. I was thinking that everything is easy for them but they work hard to be the better people that they are today. We both value our families and the type of music we listen to is kinder the same like the one song we all like is 'girls run the world' by Beyoncé.

When coming to food we like different things and for we prefer walky-talky (heads and feets), but desserts work well for them. I am looking forward to skype with them again and thanks for your time girls. Girl’s Power!!!!!

Kanana Secondary School EOP

The Emergency Operation Plan, (EOP), draft for Kanana Secondary is completed and it is delivered to other stakeholders who are part of this plan. They are impressed with the good work we have done as World Disaster Management Community College, (WDMCC) students with the help of Mr. Landon and the school. We looking forward to make the final plan up and going for the school, I hope they make it active. Expanding this plan for other schools will be a good thing and that will build a resilience community in Kanana.

                                                                      

We did a great job and team work really pays good results, Big up to everyone.

Deliver the draft EOP to the Fire Chief

Delivering the draft EOP

What a wonderful day I had at the fire department office in Klerksdorp with my fellow emergency manager’s students. We went there to deliver the draft of Kanana secondary plan that we have created with Mr. Landon and the fire chief was so excited to see us. We also met the deputy chief and he showed us the records of incidents they have worked on and he explained his background about his job. 

We took a tour with Mr. Sithole, an employee there, in the building learning about different types of trucks and what they exactly do, the equipments they use during incidents and we also saw the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) of the fire department. I enjoyed myself to the fullest and I am grateful for this opportunity and effort they are doing for us even though it was raining.

Me in action

Things are improving and that’s a good sign for a better future ahead of me. Hard work pays and it opens doors that are difficult to be opened. I am proud to be part of this college.

Students at Klerksdorp Fire Department

What a nice day, having a ride with Mr. Landon to Klerksdorp fire department office it was cool and exciting. It felt like it could be a daily thing. I was more than happy to be at the fire department office because we learnt so many things that we need to know as emergency management students and we were also motivated a lot by the words that we heard from fire department workers.

They were so excited to see us and we were welcomed with warm hands by everyone there. We were shown around the building and I was so excited to see the fire Emergency Operation Center (EOC). I was like oh my… what a nice thing and we were taught about the tools that they use for responding to fire emergencies. They even showed us some of the incidents that they have responded to. The fire chief told us some inspiring words: that he feels so ashamed that they are in our country but someone had to come out of the country to give us this life time opportunity so now all they have to do is to just be grateful to what the every child is ours foundation is doing for us and he will personally make sure that this college becomes popular as it is a very big thing that has to be known by almost everyone. He also said he will like to see us more successful in future and also see this college expanding to other communities.

When we came back it was so amazing and fun because it was so rainy and we had to sit at the back of the van and it was awful because there was a lot of a rain in Kanana. Some people were laughing at us, they were like what in the world are they doing? are this girls sick or what? But believe you me it was so fun.

Streets of Kanana after a normal rain storm

  

Training for Fire Department

The training so far is okay because we are doing the theory part and I have learned so much about different types of fire classes and how to handle fire if it might occurs. Fire is a dangerous threat, it can kill people, destroy properties and it can happen anytime because of the things we don't take to consideration e.g. overloading electrical plugs, so prevention is better than cure.It is use full to have the basic information about fire. The practical part, we gonna be trained how to swim, fire safety  and the things that fire fighters do during any incidents.

This is a good opportunity for me  to be exposed in different trainings and being able to help others with the information that I have gained and especially for my family. It is a good thing to help others but I have to be more concern about my safety.

Planning section

The moment that we've been waiting for is soon to be arrive.Since we been planning the Kanana Secondary School EOP (emergency operation plan) now is getting done and is going to  be given to the school soon.It was great to be part of the plan I was doing threat analysis, I thought it was going to be difficult for me but now even at home I can analyze threats,actually can see them every where I go,I even have my EOP for my family at home. 

Training with Fire Department

We are now having training with fire department.This is a good opportunity for me because I didn't know that fire has types of groups and is going to boost my curriculum vitae.Soon we are going to be taught how to swim,so that we can be able to help people if they are drowning and thats good for me because I don't know how to swim.

A SINGLE STEP

Indeed, it begins with a single step. We started with one computer, one lecturer, one lesson at a time, one class and, most importantly, one vision: where there is a way, there is a will. Since September 2012, it has been a rough ride but we are still going strong, day by day.

One may wonder: what are you talking about? World Disaster Management Community College. I must say that I did know much about disaster management. I only saw and heard about it on the news. I did not know there is a lot in it. It only took three weeks for Mr. Landon Densely, a lecturer and a mentor in this college, to arrive and gave me an idea of what is disaster management. He bombarded us with lot of information, illustrated with some examples of his past experience in disasters as Emergency Manager. We really appreciate his presence. He has been of greate assistance to us. We can now talk the whole day about disaster management. In fact, we created our own family Emergency Operation Plans (EOP) as part of our academic course, and we are now busy with Kanana Secondary School EOP, which we hope to finish by end of January.

We have more than 20 computers working, all with internet access. We can check our e-mails, search on the internet and take FEMA online exams. The interesting part of online test is we can access our certificates on our e-mails and print them  if we like. With these, we can see our progress. I have seen excitement in all of the students after passing every test they take. Every course that we did is on the computers.

Every one we meet, Police, Disaster Management office, Fire chief, want to help in anyhow. We would gladly appreciate any help we can get for this college. We also appreciate everything everybody is doing to keep us going, from college management to every student. As Sir Isaac Newton said: “It is by standing on other people’s shoulders to see further”. We need each other.     

Skype with Ms. Jan Paschal

Skype with Ms. Jan Paschal

What a great moment!! Today I got the opportunity to speak with Ms. Jan for the first time. The first time I saw her was at Mmokeng Secondary School in Kanana, the year was 2006, that day I did not get a chance to talk to her which made me sad. I never thought I would get a chance again. 

Today in class I was so excited to finally get a chance to talk to someone from America and specifically Ms. Jan.  She motivated me a lot and told us about the many great opportunities that are out there when we finish our schooling in disaster management.