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Council supports firefighters’ efforts to save lives in Bulawayo

A team of Aberdeen firefighters is heading to Bulawayo next month [March] to improve the Zimbabwean city’s firefighting and rescue capabilities.

Aberdeen City Council is providing UK fire service humanitarian charity Operation Florian with a £2,000 grant from the International Twinning Budget to help with transportation costs for the trip.

The Grampian Fire and Rescue Service firefighters will be in Bulawayo, one of Aberdeen’s twin cities, from March 15 until 4 April, training local firefighters and donating fire-fighting apparatus.

Grampian members of the charity visited Bulawayo with Manchester colleagues last year, when they discovered the equipment being used was past its best and potentially dangerous.

On seeing how much training and assistance was needed, they decided to return to Bulawayo. Their objectives for the project include delivering breathing apparatus and road traffic accident courses and improving community fire safety. Operation Florian will also be donating two fire appliances to Bulawayo’s fire-fighting services.

Colin Devine, Grampian team leader for the Operation Florian Bulawayo project said: "All of us in the team were delighted with the £2,000 award. The money will greatly assist our work in Bulawayo and make a real difference to the emergency response in the city and surrounding fire stations.

“Operation Florian is pleased to be working in Bulawayo, Aberdeen's twin city, and helping to make it a safer community for the people who work and live there".

Kate Dean, convener of the council’s Enterprise, Planning and Infrastructure Committee and former chair of the Bulawayo Trust said: “I am delighted that we can provide some practical assistance to a twin city which has had its share of difficulties.

“This equipment and the expertise the Operation Florian firefighters pass on will save lives.

“The Bulawayo Trust has always been about helping the people in Bulawayo to help themselves, and the Operation Florian expedition very much follows that theme.”

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, is the country’s industrial and business capital, as well as being an important transport hub providing rail links to other African countries. In recent years, Bulawayo experienced a sharp fall in living standards coinciding with the severe economic crisis affecting the country.

Aberdeen and Zimbabwe were twinned in 1986 and though the link has been fairly dormant for several years, however Bulawayo has recently expressed an interest in reinvigorating it.

Operation Florian works to promote the protection of life amongst communities in need world-wide. It provides equipment and training to improve fire-fighting and rescue capabilities.

The Bulawayo Trust works to help relieve poverty among the inhabitants of Bulawayo.

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