Press Releases

Disciplined Forces trained for the CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit in Barbados

Bridgetown, Barbados May 30, 2017 – 31 participants from the disciplined forces, including police, military and fire services are taking part in the annual CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit (CDRU) training, which is being held at the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Coordinating Unit and the Headquarters of the Regional Security System (RSS) in Barbados from May 29 – June 2, 2017.

The CDRU is a specialised humanitarian response team equipped to provide assistance to any of the eighteen CDEMA Participating States, affected by natural or technological hazard.

Caribbean region aims to integrate gender equality in disaster risk management in the agriculture sector

Georgetown, Guyana, May 19, 2017 (CDEMA) – In an effort to strengthen the resiliency of communities to disasters in the Caribbean, 25 representatives from 12 countries across the region are participating in a regional training workshop for integrating gender equality in disaster risk management programming for the agriculture sector. The workshop is being co-facilitated by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and is held on 17-19 May 2017 in Georgetown, Guyana.

Kick-'Em - Jenny Unrest: Final Information Note as of 5:00pm on May 9th 2017

MESSAGE: No further activities reported with the Kick-‘Em-Jenny underwater volcano

Kick-Em-Jenny Unrest Information Note #1 as of 5:00 pm on May 2nd 2017

MESSAGE: CDEMA Participating States continue to monitor the recent activities of the Kick-‘Em-Jenny Underwater Volcano

THE SITUATION:

The Seismic Research Centre (SRC) of the University of the West Indies has reported increased activities with the Kick-‘Em Jenny underwater volcano, which is located near Grenada. The latest update provided by the UWI SRC as at 3:00 p.m. May 2^nd 2017, indicated that activity rate associated with the volcano persisted at about the same level since the first recorded eruption of 29^th April. During the period 10:41 a.m. on 1^st May – 00:20 a.m. on 2^nd May, 2017, 40 volcanic earthquakes were recorded with the largest magnitude event at 4.0, so far, since the start of the eruptions.

Workshop - Learning from social and environmental histories to build resilient solutions for disaster risk reduction in the Caribbean – Monday 22 May, Cancun, Mexico.

Effective disaster risk management (DRM) requires an understanding of the social capacity of potentially affected communities, the environments in which they live and work, and the economic activities that these environments support. The resilience of communities and environments depends on their histories, including patterns of settlement, culture, politics, environmental degradation and stressors. Yet, these historical aspects are frequently overlooked in DRM, which can lead to inappropriate or short-lived solutions. To build resilience effectively, we need to understand communities and ecosystems as products of the past, and use this understanding to develop appropriate short- and long-term responses to disasters and build more resilient futures.

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