The Volunteer Emergency Response Team wrapped up its Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) training programme on Sunday with the final exercise organised to test their knowledge, the Department of Public Information said.
The Community-Based Disaster Risk Management training has been described as vital to alleviating the effects of possible disasters in Guyana. To this end, the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) held a training programme at its headquarters to equip volunteers with the requisite skills before sending them out in the field.
DPI said that the team travelled to the Bath/Woodley Park Neighbourhood Democratic Council, West Berbice, where they were divided into teams and were tasked with using a specific CBDRM tool to assess their assigned area. The teams mapped the communities of Woodley Park, Bath Settlement and Plantation Hope while undertaking transect walks.
In an invited comment, VERT participant, Alisha Hercules said that in addition to mapping the area, the teams will be interacting with residents to gather information on the occurrences of floods and droughts in the area. “Once we can understand how often it happened in the past, well then we can predict or try to analyse the occurrence in the future and then understanding that we can develop and implement certain preventative measures.”
The VERT programme, which was launched in March, will be carried out over one year and will see volunteers being trained in several areas. These include Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis; Community Based Disaster Risk Management; First Aid Emergency Medical Response; Oil Spill Response, Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk Management among others.
