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| Life Saving Association of Sri Lanka Keen to Learn From IMRF International Experience |
The International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) has held productive discussions with the Life Saving Association of Sri Lanka and wants to assist with its impressive development.
LSASL hosted the IMRF at an event attended by 40 regional coordinators, rescue volunteers and other SAR services.
The LSASL have just joined as members of the IMRF and having the Chairman and CEO of the charity for open forum discussions proved to be highly productive.
Said IMRF Chairman, Michael Vlasto. “LSASL is continuing to develop its capability and the statistics relating to lives saved are impressive on a comparative basis. We, as an organisation, are keen to assist with the on-going development in any way we can.
“There is knowledge, resources and experience our members have that we want to share to help with the development of SAR organisations in Sri Lanka. I mentioned to the President that there is a Regional meeting taking place in Hong Kong on 5/6th September and our CEO will be sending a formal invitation to the LSASL to attend.”
The forum addressed the ways the IMRF could help and the key topics discussed were training of volunteers, sourcing funding, planning for the future and developing collaboration with other government and non-government SAR organisations.
“The challenge we have at the IMRF is understanding the areas where we could assist the LSASL” said IMRF CEO Bruce Reid. “We had some very good discussion at the meeting which will lead to future activities supported by IMRF.”
The delegation from the IMRF spent an intensive 36 hours in Colombo last week. The Lifeboat Institution of Sri Lanka coordinated meetings with the Coast Guard HQ, Ministry of Disaster Management, met with Mahinda Awaraweera ,MP, Minister of Disaster Management, and finished with the evening function with the LSASL.
Water related mass rescue, as part of the disaster management for Sri Lanka, was on the agenda and the IMRF suggested that a Mass Rescue Operations (MRO) Workshop could be of value in the future.
IMRF used the meetings to provide a briefing on the Mass Rescue Operations Workshop that had been successfully run in Dhaka, Bangladesh. There was also a comprehensive presentation by the Sri Lanka Coast Guard on the challenging, but increasingly successful lifesaving work, being carried out by the rapidly developing service.
About IMRF
The International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) brings the world's maritime search and rescue organisations together in one global - and growing - family, accredited at the International Maritime Organization (IMO).IMRF's member organisations share their lifesaving ideas, technologies and experiences and freely cooperate with one another to achieve their common humanitarian aim: "Preventing loss of life in the world's waters". See: www.international-maritime-
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