For the past 9 years, a Polish company, PCPM Foundation, has been training firefighters in Kenya to help victims of accidents, fires, collapses or floods, as efficiently and safely as possible.
The President of the company Wojtek Wilk, who has been overseeing the project, stated that the project has been running through financial support from Polish Aid, a Polish development cooperation program implemented by the Polish government.
Wilk noted that the programme had since tripled the number of firefighters in the country which he noted was still low compared to Poland which had a higher number of emergency response teams despite being smaller in land mass
According to the CEO, however, Kenyans still faced difficulty in getting quick emergency responses, especially in cases of falling buildings, fire, floods and accidents because the government had not taken an initiative to train firefighters.
“Kenya is in need of professional rescue support as a result of building collapses. Unfortunately, at the moment, the victims of such disasters frequently cannot expect any help.
“That’s why we’re focusing on making the fire station network as dense as possible through training and construction projects so that response times to accidents are as short as possible,” Wilk stated.
The CEO explained that Kenya was underwhelmed in terms of the number of firefighters noting that there was a need for more sensitisation to encourage more people to join the profession.
In addition, he stated that there were few fire stations in Kenya to accommodate the trained personnel.
“I am proud of our efforts. Since 2014, the number of fire stations in Kenya has tripled, as has the number of firefighters.
“However, Kenya is more than twice the size of Poland and the number of firefighters is still too less,” he added.
Further, he noted that the firefighters in Kenya did not have adequate and the right professional gear to offer professional rescue services adding that part of the project was to prove to the government that they could afford quality equipment.
“We need to train firefighters who will then pass the knowledge on and equip them with professional gear.
“Importantly, we also prepared a fire truck that is a technology demonstrator to indicate to local authorities that this type of vehicle could be within the administration’s budgetary reach,” he noted.
The CEO revealed that the organisation had built a fire station in Makueni County, Machakos, along Nairobi as well as at the port of Mombasa, and constructed a training centre at Kiambu.
“The foundation has built a Fire and Rescue Training Center in Kiambu where firefighters can hone their skills.
“Training is provided by a group of Polish firefighters certified in Kenya. The goal of the Foundation’s activities is to create Kenya’s first training cadre in firefighting, technical and medical rescue,” Wilk stated.
