Bridgetown, Barbados February 17, 2022 - The Preparedness and Response Division (PRD) of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), through its Regional Training Centre (RTC), commenced a three-day Damage and Needs Assessment (DANA) Orientation/Training workshop for the St. Vincent & The Grenadines National Emergency Management Organisation (SVG NEMO) on February 15^th, 2022. The training is intended to present a systematic approach for conducting damage assessment in an effective and time sensitive manner to influence response and recovery actions in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Bridgetown, Barbados March 22, 2022 - The Preparedness and Response Division (PRD) of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) recently hosted a series of virtual Tabletop National Level Exercises (NLEs) focused on enhancing capacity at the national level to manage disaster events. Emergency Personnel from the 20 CDEMA Participating States (PSs) benefitted from scenarios and discussions on shelter management, logistics, communications, health and GIS capacity.  

Bridgetown, Barbados May 30, 2022– The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), is deploying a two-man team to travel to Suriname to assess the impact of heavy flooding caused by recent heavy rainfall.

This follows a Declaration on Wednesday, May 25th from President of Suriname, Chandrikaperdad Santokhi, that the districts of Brokopondo, Sipaliwini, Marowijne, Para, Saramacca, Coronie and Nickerie, in the Interior and southern sections, have been severely impacted due to continuous rainfall which started as early as March affecting agricultural crops, roads, electricity, housing and schools.

The CDEMA Response Support Mission is being led by Programme Manager, Preparedness and Response, Joanne Persad who is supported by Navindra Persad from the Disaster Preparedness Office in Trinidad and Tobago. The one-week mission will assess the situation on the ground and help with determining the response and humanitarian needs of the country.

Following the Declaration from President Santokhi, CDEMA activated a high-level meeting attended by its international partner donors operating in the region, where more than a dozen pledged humanitarian assistance to the Suriname people.

Bridgetown, Barbados May 25, 2022– As the 2022 Hurricane Season approaches, the CDEMA Coordinating Unit (CU) hosted its fourth annual Exercise SYNERGY virtually on May 22, 2022, to build preparedness for the potential multi-island, multi-hazard impact threat to the region. Over 50 regional and international stakeholders attended SYNERGY, a flagship regional exercise to test the coordination within the Regional Response Mechanism (RRM).