Page 14 - DDME "The Disaster Forum"

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3. Training & Capacity Building
DDME con@nues to partner with Government agencies, statutory bodies and the private sector in building capacity and increasing resilience throughout the TCI. Between January and June 2019, within the first 6 months of the year, ahead of the Atlan@c hurricane season, DDME has conducted/facilitated approximately 9 training sessions/workshops training approximately 300 persons. These were:
January- Media and Disaster Management Workshop- targe@ng media Houses- 15 persons
February- Emergency Opera@ons Center- 80 persons Business Con@nuity Providenciales -40 persons
March- Crisis and Emergency Communica@on-40 persons April- Shelter Management-65 persons
Damage and Needs Assessment (DANA)-40 persons May- Work Life Balance-8 persons
June- Business Con@nuity Grand Turk-20 Trimble 10 persons
We will also have quite a bit of training sessions coming up, for example:
June 24th –Communica@on During Crisis workshop and on August 12-15, Logis@cal Support System (LSS) training.
4. Exercises
Since the beginning of the year DDME has conducted approximately 4 exercises to test emergency communica@on plans and procedures, emergency communica@on equipment and held an exercise to test the evacua@on of the island of Salt Cay. Lessons learnt from these exercises have all been documented to be addressed in the short to medium term. DDME had also par@cipated in a regional exercise called Region Rap. Addi@onal exercises are schedule to take place in the TCI between August and September to test the island of North and South Caicos Emergency response plan.
5. Shelter Management
During the month of March 2019, shelter inspec@ons were conducted throughout the TCI by a mul@- agency team consis@ng of persons from DDME, PWD, EHD, Planning Department and TCI Red Cross. As a result of this exercise, a total of 14 facili@es have been iden@fied and proposed to be used as shelters for the 2019 Hurricane Season. These include:
• Grand Turk (Eliza Simons Primary School)
• Salt Cay (George Been Memorial Hall (Methodist Sunday School
Hall)
• South Caicos (New Testament Creole Ministry and New
Testament Church of God)
• North Caicos (Lighthouse Church, Sandy Point Community Centre
and Kew Community Center)
• Middle Caicos (Mt. Moriah Bap@st Church)
• Providenciales (i. Enid Capron Primary School; ii. Maranatha High
School, iii. All Saints Mission Church, iv. Jericho Bap@st Church, v. Kingdom Dominion Ministries Interna@onal and vi. Wesley Methodist High School)
• The Public is asked to note:
- All shelters will not be opened at the same @me; a staggering
approach will be used should there be a need to ac@vate our shelters
- Also the shelter list is subject to be reviewed and updated mid-season i.e. August 2019
• I must pause to thank the Pastors and Principles of the various churches and schools above who have graciously agreed to allow DDME, and by extension the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands, the use of their facility... as the song goes “a shelter in the Eme of storm”. On behalf of the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands we thank you for your partnership and support.