A student from the University of the Free State (UFS) Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC) has recently arrived in Nepal where, together with the South African group from the international help support organisation, Gift of the Givers, he is working as a volunteer.
The group left for Nepal last week where the country was hard hit by a disastrous earthquake.
Schalk van der Merwe, a Master’s degree student at the UFS, is now offering his services as a technical rescuer in Nepal for the next three weeks.
He describes conditions as extremely challenging as the team must function with very little equipment and no local language skills.