Ministry of Emergency Situations
of the Republic of Armenia

Today, on October 18, Minister of ES Armen Pambukhchyan received Ms. Christine Weigand, representative of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Armenia. Vigen Shirvanyan, UNICEF Climate Change Officer, and Davit Hambaryan, Deputy Minister of ES, participated in the meeting.

Minister Pambukhchyan highly appreciated the cooperation with UNICEF, which started in 2010 and expressed confidence in the continuation of effective cooperation.

Head of the Department singled out a number of opportunities to consider possible paths of cooperation: in particular, development of programs aimed at increasing awareness of seismic risks, the joint implementation of programs to increase psychological preparedness for disasters in kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions using the capacities of the Psychological Service of MES, as well as the possibility of training the medical staff of schools in order to hone their skills in rendering first aid in case of emergency situations.

Christine Weigand thanked the Minister for the warm welcome and reaffirmed UNICEF's willingness to cooperate closely for building disaster risk management capacities in kindergartens, schools, and universities, and for introducing educational programs in disaster risk reduction.