{"id":78523,"date":"2023-01-30T12:33:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T16:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.carilec.org\/?p=78523"},"modified":"2023-01-30T12:33:46","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T16:33:46","slug":"cdemas-chairman-wants-the-regional-public-to-take-disaster-preparedness-more-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/cdemas-chairman-wants-the-regional-public-to-take-disaster-preparedness-more-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"CDEMA\u2019s Chairman wants the regional public to take Disaster Preparedness more seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bridgetown, Barbados, January 11, 2023<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Chairman of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) the Honourable Shawn Edward intends to raise the level of awareness about managing disasters and mitigating the impact as the region continues to face an increasing multi-hazard environment.<\/p>\n

He told a media briefing while touring the Barbados-based agency on Tuesday, January 10, 2023 that greater focus must be on expanding public education with a view of getting \u201cpeople of the region to develop a greater appreciation for disaster management, disaster mitigation, safety\u201d and getting a better understanding of the consequences of disasters on the vulnerable economies of the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic education and awareness for me are critical. You can have all the technical expertise, you can invest in all the modern equipment critical to effective disaster management. But there are too many people in the region who die during times of disasters, deaths, that on review, were avoidable or could have been avoided,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Chairman said he does not believe that the average citizen across the Caribbean, knows about \u201cdisaster preparedness and mitigation in a way that would cause me to be satisfied\u201d and as such \u201cthere’s a lot of work to be done\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have too many people in the region who approach disaster management and safety in a haphazard way. And part of our mandate moving forward, or my mandate as chair, at least for the period that I\u2019m presiding over the agency, is to go into schools to tap into the interests of our people at a very young age so they grow up not responding to the dictates of an agency, but they will be growing up with an appreciation for something that has implications for them at every stage of their development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that can be embarked upon and we can achieve this that would be a major accomplishment during my chairmanship,\u201d said Mr. Edward, who is also St. Lucia\u2019s Minister of Education, Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training.<\/p>\n

Flanked by CDEMA\u2019s Executive Director Ms. Elizabeth Riley and newly appointed Deputy Executive Director, Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig, the Chairman said the agency will continue\u00a0to work with other regional organizations and key stakeholders to spread the important messages throughout its 19 Participating States and \u201cwithin the confines\u201d of students\u2019 classrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intention is to complement the work being executed through the \u201cSafe School\u201d programme which is already in some of CDEMA\u2019s Participating States, public service announcements and \u201ceffective use of social as well as mainstream media,\u201d Chairman Edward added.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong>
\nThe Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) is a regional intergovernmental agency for disaster management in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).The agency comprises nineteen (19) Participating States (PS): Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda,mCayman Islands, Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Republic of Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos Islands and the Virgin Islands. CDEMA is governed through the Council of Ministers, a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the Coordinating Unit. As a specialized regional Agency of CARICOM, the Heads of Government of the Participating States determine the policies. The Council is the highest level of governance of CDEMA determining policy and policy decisions at that level.<\/p>\n

For further information, please contact:<\/p>\n

Keith.A.N.Goddard
\nCommunication and Public Relations Specialist<\/strong>
\nCARIBBEAN DISASTER EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (CDEMA)
\nResilience Way, Lower Estate
\nSt. Michael
\nBARBADOS
\nTel #: (246) 434-4880
\nFax #: (246) 271-3660
\nCell #: (246) 266-1976
\nEmail:\u00a0keith.goddard@cdema.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bridgetown, Barbados, January 11, 2023\u00a0\u2013 Chairman of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) the Honourable Shawn Edward intends to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3192],"tags":[4278,3483,4527,3644],"class_list":["post-78523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cdap-disaster-bulletin","tag-mitigation","tag-disaster-management","tag-multi-hazard","tag-safety"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Minister-Shawn-Edward-feat-image-1024x1024.webp","month_date":"Jan","day_date":"30","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/76571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}