Kenya

Kenya

szkolenie strażaków w Kenii
szkolenie strażaków w Kenii

Since 2014, the Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM) has supported the development and professionalization of the Kenya Fire And Rescue Services.This is the largest Polish development aid project in East Africa.

The PCPM has supported the development and professionalization of the Kenya Fire And Rescue Services. Thanks to our efforts, the country now has 71 fire stations, up from 26, and more than 1,500 firefighters, up from 450. PCPM has trained almost 60 percent of Kenya’s firefighting personnel.

Thanks to the Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM), the number of fire stations in Kenya has increased from 26 to 71, and the number of firefighters has grown from 450 to over 1500. In total, PCPM has trained nearly 60% of Kenya’s firefighting personnel. In the years 2024-2026, the Foundation will develop a specialized search and rescue team.

Ongoing projects

Structural collapses are unfortunately a very common occurrence in the Nairobi Metropolitan Area. In the last seven years alone, there have been 29 such disasters, resulting in 58 deaths and 116 injuries. The data is certainly underestimated, as there is currently no central, accurate registry in the country.

Effective services such as the fire service perform many tasks, with firefighting being just one of them. At the request of the Kenyan Ministry of Interior and the National Disaster Management Unit, in the years 2024-2026 PCPM will focus on building a search and rescue team. The project is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Polish aid program.

The work will be based on three pillars: training, equipment and infrastructure. In the first module, PCPM will establish a search and rescue team in the Nairobi area, which will be trained in the following years until full readiness is achieved. At the same time, specialized equipment will be provided that is necessary for work on rubble.

Such a team does not exist in Kenya and all the knowledge transferred will be new. Therefore, practical training is very important, and a training ground will be needed for this purpose. The PCPM Foundation has experience, as it has already built one fire training ground in Kenya for firefighting training. Now it will build another one dedicated to work on rubble.

In the following years, the training ground will be expanded, among other things, to include storage facilities, and training will continue, both for the search and rescue team and for emergency response services. A command vehicle will also be provided for the team, which will increase efficiency, and in the last module in 2026 it will be adapted to transport rescuers.

After 2 years, PCPM will start training trainers and integrating the team. As a result, Kenya will gain both a fully functional search and rescue team and instructors who will be able to train future rescuers.

Previous Activities

This is the largest Polish development project in East Africa. In the years 2021-2023, the activities were financed by the Polish aid program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. PCPM’s annual budget for activities in Kenya accounts for approximately  PLN 1.5 million. In total, since 2014 PCPM has implemented projects in Kenya worth approximately  PLN 14 million.