Red Cross Stands Ready to Assist Where It Can Post Hurricane Nana

Lily Bowman

According to Bowman, because the effects of the storm have been localised to Stann Creek and Punta Gorda, the Ministry of Human Development and NEMO are leading the efforts for disaster response. The Belize Red Cross, however, stands ready to provide any additional support where needed.

Lily Bowman, Director General, Belize Red Cross

“In the Toledo district and the Stann Creek district, our volunteers were in constant communication with the representatives in those districts. They also did very quick assessments with the limited capacity that they have down there. There is also very minimal damage to houses and what was amazing is that these people get up and they start repairing their homes right away. And so that is something that I would put to resilience of the community and we are very happy to see that because that is one of the things that the Belize Red Cross drives through the community; we teach a lot about building resilience among the community. We have been in communication with the foreign assistance sub-committee of NEMO as well; just had a meeting this morning, as a matter of fact, where we reviewed the preliminary assessments coming out. There is definitely more than a hundred families that have been affected and that could be much more over the coming days as the assessments continue. If there is need for Red Cross to respond, we will definitely move into that mode. However, we are still in COVID-19 response mode which includes food distribution. So what we will do is speed up the food distribution for those communities as we are getting ready for a third tranche of food distribution countrywide under the COVID-19 response programme.”