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Contact:
John Emmanuel
Friday, February 06, 2004 - As a three-day CEDERA/CDB Hazard Mitigation
and Planning workshop closed here on Thursday, February, 5th, 2004 work has
commenced in earnest on the development of a more comprehensive approach towards
disaster management. The new focus, being spearheaded by CEDERA under its
Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) project, takes in account several
activities of day to day living that require advance planning for disaster
mitigation and reduction.
Information Manager at the Barbados headquartered CEDERA Terry Ally, said there
was a dire need to move away from the response and relief culture to a more
holistic preparedness culture. That quest he noted would call for getting the
entire population of a country on board in order to achieve success. “This in
itself is a very mammoth task,” said Ally, quickly pointing out however that it
was not impossible.
To date a major initiative is underway aimed at heightening public awareness on
this culture of preparedness though multi-media technology. That process is to
be led by the various Government Information Services throughout the region. The
hope is for the conceptualized of a campaign designed to bring the various
publics from all member countries on board in order to foster that culture.
Talks have already taken place with GIS representatives in Barbados, Grenada and
St. Lucia with CEDERA due to hold dialogue with media representatives in Belize
in the coming weeks.
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