Over fifty persons representing Community Disaster Response Teams and other volunteers of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Red Cross Society (SVGRCS) are now better equipped with the tools and knowledge on how to be the initial responders in their communities in the event of a disaster or hazard.
This as the SVGRCS hosted its annual multi-hazard readiness workshop on Thursday July 29th at the NIS conference room.
This workshop is part of the National Society’s continued response to the Covid-19 pandemic, outbreak of Dengue fever, the aftermath of the April 9th volcanic eruption and now the hurricane season which has been predicted by experts to be an active one.
The Multi-hazard readiness workshop was considered to be an event that was well over due and aimed to provide the participants with a platform for dialogue.
It placed emphasis on the roles and responsibilities of the Red Cross as an organisation along with that of the volunteers and disaster response teams as outlined in the national disaster plan.
The participants were able to build a common understanding of impact- based forecasting and warning services in SVG
They also looked at identifying the approaches and priorities for the 2021 hurricane season and were afforded the opportunity to provide recommendations for their community response.
The workshop saw the execution of a simulation exercise which focussed on the approach of a category three hurricane.
The participants were split in two groups; one group was tasked to take the necessary steps to get the community prepared up to the point of landfall. The other group was challenged to act upon the necessary steps to take in response to the declaration of an ‘all clear’ by the public authorities.
President of the SVGRCS Bernard Morgan said the participants were “brilliant”. He stated that the teams portrayed leadership, coordination, communication, and emphasised on an effective early warning strategy.
He said he was happy to see that the teams acted upon the mobilization of shelters and other aspects of a response operation and noted that the significance of a reliable communication strategy and the importance of damage assessment were also brought to the forefront.
The workshop also provided the platform for the review of the National Society’s response to the volcanic eruption, as well as other hazards such as landslide, flooding and hurricane.
