The Office of Disaster Management in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is holding a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training course for the southern communities, to develop a cadre of volunteers who are competent in supporting the CERT Program.
The training started on December the 10th and will end on December the 14th.
“I think that it is important not only to train persons but to sensitize them, because these are the leaders in the community…our nurses, our police officers, our teachers…,” Assistant Chief Education Officer Dr. Jeffrey Blaize said while addressing the opening ceremony held at Jimmit on Monday .
According to him, “This activity will be profoundly important for you, not only from a professional capacity, but also from a personal capacity as well, because you are going to gain knowledge that you would not otherwise have been able to access and that is important.”
He stressed that participants are going to benefit both personally and professionally, from this activity.
The CERT program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skill, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations.
In addition, members also receive training on Introduction to Disaster Services, Mass Care and Shelter & Operations and Shelter Simulations.
Very useful training. I agree with Dee.. I wonder how the volunteers are selected? Also by South does this mean only Soufriere, Grandbay etc? When will there be training for other communities? This would be useful across Dominica. I also think a website with relevant information would be extremely useful. Also ensure that the volunteers trained can train others. Keep up the good work.
Was that training solely for police officers, nurses and teachers in the community ?
Hey, what happen to the carpenters and builders and fishermen, Maria has just gone past a year and we are back to normal , not recognizing the value and importance of other professionals also .
Shouldn’t they feel inferior when left out of these trainings ,(if that is so )?
This is a great initiative. Kudos.
I always wonder why articles like these NEVER have an influx of comments. HMMMMM.. This is good btw wishing the volunteers success because we need more emergency response personal besides police officers, nurses ect. at least 2 in each community.