Effort on to enhance disaster preparedness in Caribbean schools
At the recently concluded Caribbean Safe School Ministerial Forum held in April of this year in Antigua and Barbuda, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) reiterated its commitment to championing the Caribbean School Safety initiative, towards building a culture of safety within the education sector.
The Caribbean Safe School Ministerial Forum was jointly organised by CDEMA, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and a number of other organisations. And as CDEMA and UNICEF Eastern Caribbean cemented their partnership recently by signing an MOU to pre-position emergency supplies for the Eastern Sub-Region, Khin-Sandi Lwin, UNICEF’s Representative in the Eastern Caribbean Area noted that further work was being done to enhance the initiative.
“In April, we partnered together to get the ten Ministers of Education from the region to declare the Antigua and Barbuda School Safety in the Caribbean initiative. So that’s a major political initiative and we are ready to move into getting the education system to take the next step,” Lwin commented in the presence of CDEMA’s Executive Director, Ronald Jackson at CDEMA Headquarters here in Barbados.
“Another area we are working on, is developing the guidelines, what should be done in a state of preparedness in the education system, so what we call child-centred emergency disaster risk management in Caribbean schools,” she added.
It has meanwhile been noted that the CDEMA Coordinating Unit has a long history of supporting the integration of disaster risk management into the education sector, through the development of technical resources to support policy, school readiness and resources to support the infusion of disaster risk management concepts into the curriculum.
During the Forum in April, which was hosted by the Honourable Michael S. Browne, Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Antigua and Barbuda, other Ministers of Education and high-level officials endorsed and signed the Antigua and Barbuda Declaration for School Safety whilst in that country. The Caribbean Safe School Initiative was also launched, which presents the framework to advance school safety in the Caribbean and at the same time reflects the Caribbean contribution to the Worldwide Initiative for Safe Schools.
It has also been noted that the CDEMA Model Safe School Programme and Toolkit for the Caribbean has been endorsed by Ministers with responsibility for disaster management in CDEMA Participating States. It promotes a comprehensive and holistic treatment of risk in the school environment and expands the perspectives of school safety, beyond the traditional singular focus on emergencies, embracing safe learning facilities, school disaster management and resilience education. In this regard, it is congruent with the Comprehensive School Safety Framework and a vehicle for implementing the Worldwide Initiative on Safe Schools in the region. (RSM)