Bridgetown, Barbados, July 16th, 2015 (CDEMA) - The Deputy Executive Director (DED) of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Ms. Elizabeth Riley, hosted two secondary school students at the regional body’s Coordinating Unit (CU) on Wednesday, 15 July, 2015 as part of the Agency’s contribution to this year’s Mini Model United Nations (Mini MUN).
For the past three years, the Rotary Clubs of Barbados in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have been hosting the Mini MUN initiative at the start of the July/August vacation as part of Rotary’s International Service programme.
The programme ran from July 13 to July 16 and was hosted at the United Nations House, Balmoral Gap, Christ Church. During that time the students participated in a number of educational and information sessions with different agencies where they learnt of the work carried out by International and Humanitarian agencies along with the work of other regional bodies. The primary role of the presentations was to demonstrate to the students the synergistic relationship between development agencies along with that of philanthropic entities such as Rotary International.
CDEMA contributed to these sessions by providing a presentation on Comprehensive Disaster Management and the CDEMA system, delivered by Ms. Gayle Drakes, Education and Training Specialist at the CDEMA Coordinating Unit.
Following these sessions, the students were invited to select one of the participating agencies to visit for a more indepth orientation to its operations. Florence Fields and Emma Sealy selected CDEMA as their agency of choice and met with the Deputy Executive Director). Ms Riley spent some time providing the students with an overview of the regional Disaster Management organization, including the role and function of the CDEMA Coordinating Unit. This was followed by a tour of the facilities led by the Education and Training Specialist who also briefed them on the operations of the Regional Response Mechanism during disaster events.