Red Cross prepares for disasters
A month ago, the Belize Red Cross held a Trainers of Trainers Workshop in disaster management. At that workshop the participants were trained to recognize the kind of disasters that might affect a particular community and mapped areas in that community that might prove hazardous during a disaster. Today those people got together again; this time to talk about relief systems and shelter management and how to assess the damages and distribute supplies.
Jacqueline Woods
“How is that decided?”
William Skeen, Director General, Belize Red Cross
“Well it is decided by looking at the hardest hit. You look at the amount of deaths for example. The area where the highest death rate was, you know that’s a priority area. And you look to the peoples whose homes are drastically damage and you look at those who are only minimally damage. You look at those who lost all their property. That way you can make a good assessment as to where the relief supplies should go and in what quantities. The size of families, how many children are there, how many elders are involved, and people with disabilities.”
Jacqueline Woods
“Is it because that we are approaching the hurricane season that this workshop is taking place at this time?”
William Skeen
“No. Actually we have a year round program of disaster preparedness. Sometimes it’s for fires, floods and even minor tremors, droughts and hurricanes, that’s all year round. But we have stepped up the pace a bit, because we know that on June 1st the hurricane season will be open. And even though some countries thought that they were ready for Mitch, they were still very hard hit. They admitted afterwards that they though they were ready, but they were only 15% ready in retrospect. So we want to make sure that we do not fall into that same category and that we are in fact ready when we think that we are.”
Representatives from the Ministry of Rural Development, Rural District Officers, members of the Belize Red Cross, the Belize City Council and the National Emergency Management Organization attended today’s session. The workshop will come to a close on Saturday.
