Another partnership in the making
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 10:23:00 GMT
Professors Dilanthi Amaratunga and Richard Haigh, upon an invitation received from the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka (SEUSL), visited them on the 9th December 2016.
A Disaster Management Centre has been proposed to be established at the Faculty of Technology, SEUSL. The SEUSL is an ideal entity to establish such a centre due to the availability of diverse human resources (engineering physical, biological and social sciences, geology, meteorology etc.), natural environment for research, infrastructure and other technical facilities. GDRC was asked to provide assistance in setting up the centre, which will be managed by a multidisciplinary team of experts whose expertise is in the areas of Environmental Conservation and Management, Forestry and Environmental Management, Environmental Science and Infrastructure Engineering, Geography and GIS.
Photo: Discussions with the Disaster Management Centre
The Disaster Management Centre at SEUSL will be developed as a resource centre for the researchers, public as well as for the industry that needs support for developing technical solutions. It is hoped that at the beginning, the centre will conduct awareness programs, certificate courses on disaster management and workshops to get the public awareness and interest on disaster management. Further, the team will seek funding for research as well as research collaborations with national and international institutions/ researchers for which they seek GDRC collaboration.
In long term, the centre will identify past, on-going and anticipated natural calamities in providing technology-based solutions to minimize the losses in the future events.
Photo: Disaster Management Centre and GDRC
The establishment of the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka fulfilled the long felt needs of the people of the South eastern region of Sri Lanka. The birth of the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka in 1995 also coincided with more positive thinking and policy of the Government to broad base University education further, by extending it to periphery and less developed regions in the country such as the South Eastern region and also for the displaced students and academic staff from the Eastern University due to the long standing civil war prevailed at the time.
