I am very proud of the action taken by the Malaysian government dealing with the plight of Malaysian students facing with adversities during the recent political turmoil in Egypt. Pyramid mission, as it is called, is the first mission of its kind to transfer back Malaysian citizens on a large scale to the safety heaven called home.
For weeks, students are living in terror, especially those living near Tahrir Square, a red-alert, ‘war zone’ area in the capital, Cairo. Students living in Alexandria, Tanta, Zigazig and Mansoura are pretty safe and well-taken care by their sponsors, MARA, Medic Mesir and Global Medic Network. Except for some isolated cases, services rendered are excellence.
The only problems, I sense, are the lack of food as a result of massive, instant inflation and communication breakdown due to Egyptian government cut off on internet, twitter, FB and mobile lines. These problems are, of course, beyond control.
It is not an easy task to coordinate such a huge deployment of citizen in such a short period of time. High level of coordination is needed especially with regard to managing food, accommodation, transportation, logistic, safety, students’ surveillance, immigration and air space permission.
Students involved must learn on how to survive, coordinate emergency work, manage crisis and disaster. These knowledge will equip them with basic skills on how to become capable leaders in their respective area in the future.
Wisma Putra has to take steps in ensuring that Malaysian Embassies have the right number of staffs based on the number of Malaysian citizen living within their respective area of coverage. SOP on evacuation has to be updated regularly so that Malaysian Embassies are quick to act when the need arises.
We all realize by now that as Malaysia has becoming a developed country, there are many Malaysians live and work oversea. Therefore, Malaysia has to be as good as US and Japan in protecting it’s own citizen.
(Malaysian students attending safety briefing which in fact, indirectly, part of crisis management class)
-Courtesy, Mr Mahmood, Global Medic Network.
Idea-logy 