To enhance safety mechanisms for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in UNMISS protection sites, UN Police (UNPOL) Community Policing officers on Friday January 29, 2016 completed a training programme for 49 members of the Community Watch Group  in Juba.

The four-day training course focused on local justice, dispute resolutions dealing with aggressive and hostile people and benefits of visible patrols and community reassurance.

Other issues discussed during the training included ground rules of the camp and code of conduct, roles and responsibilities in ensuring fire safety , HIV awareness , gender, child protection and rights of women and children.

During the closing ceremony the UNPOL Deputy POC Coordinator Lambertus Coppens encouraged the participants to put to practice the knowledge and skill they had acquired to improve on security within the POC Camps.

He said advised them to be agents of change within the community to assist UNPOLs in maintaining law and order in the POC sites and also discourages fellow IDPs from perpetrating violence against each other.

“It is your responsibility and ours to ensure that all forms of criminal activities do not happen within the POCs and that ground rules are enforced to maintain law and order, PA Lambertus added.
 
A Course participant Zachariah Bouk said the training they had acquired would help them work effectively and assist their leaders in solving issues within the camp.

He also expressed the hope that patrol techniques learnt during the course would allow them deliver good service to their people within the POCs.

The Chairman of POC 3 Tap Liem Nttial commended UNPOL Officers for the good work they were doing within the POC sites and expressed the hope that they will continue to work together with the community to prevent crime.

He congratulated the participants and thanked the facilitators for creating such an opportunity for members of the Community Watch Group to acquire the needed knowledge that would help them main peace and security within the POCs.