Salima chiefs told to preach weather information

Chiefs in Salima have been advised to utilise their forums to sensitise communities to the importance of visiting climate information centres and making decisions based on daily weather updates from the Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services (DCCMS).

The call was made on Friday at Salima Community Centre ground during a climate change information centre open day. Despite that Salima was among the first districts to have a fully equipped district climate information centre in 2012, which has a television screen where all the weather updates are displayed courtesy of DCCMS, many people rarely use the centre.

This was revealed when DCCMS, head of public weather services Elina Kululanga interacted with some of their partners to find out the challenges in weather information communication and the way forward.

National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust librarian for Salima, Martin Chibwana, said there is need for more effort to increase patronage at the centres.

Said Chibwana:“Chiefs should be asked to spare some minutes at the beginning of their functions to talk about climate change. If this begins at village level, we will increase the number of people coming to the centre.”

Senior Chief Kalonga promised to influence other chiefs to talk climate and weather information.

DCCMS’s director Jolamu Nkhokwe described the climate change information centres initiative as a success as it has increased the number of people with access to weather knowledge.

He said: “Apart from the centres, we use media and it hard that one can miss our information.”