Arrangements are being made for a team of consultants to hold a workshop in Sandy Ground, one of the areas inAnguillaprune to disaster. The participants are expected to be residents of the village, builders, contractors and building inspectors.
Director of Disaster Management, Melissa Meade, told media representatives that Anguilla was one of the neighbouring islands selected for an OECS pilot project and that the one-week workshop would be held in February.
She observed that Sandy Ground was a highly vulnerable community, when it comes to hurricanes, storm surges, landslides, flooding and tsunamis; and that there was a need for its community to determine how it could respond to such vulnerabilities.
Ms. Meade made the comments during last week’s visit of a Jamaican consulting team to Anguilla. The members included the lead consultant, Stephen Hodges, Keith Forde and Beverline Brown-Smith. They were accompanied by the OECS representative, Cornelius Isaacs.
Mr. Isaacs said the Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management Project, to be undertaken in Sandy Ground, was a small component of the OECS programme. “What it does is to get us to start thinking of doing things from the community perspective,” he explained. “We are attempting to establish an approach whereby the community can determine what its priorities are from a disaster risk reduction point of view.” He said the community needed to be prepared for any hazard to which it was vulnerable.
He disclosed that the OECS had received funding from the Caribbean Development Bank and the International Development Bank to assist vulnerable communities to organise themselves in order not to suffer the kind of destruction which occurred elsewhere. He said that as a result of the funding, the OECS was able to obtain the team of consultants fromJamaicato implement the community project.
Team leader, Mr. Hodges, said the pilot project was aimed eventually at looking at hazardsin the entire OECS sub-region and building community resilience, beginning with a series of workshop activities. He stated that Keith Forde would be working with the Sandy Ground community on risk assessment and the production of maps of areas where disaster was likely to occur. “He will be bringing in people from various ministries, with technical expertise, to interact with the community so that they can have a really good problem statement, and then work towards a mitigation plan on what is the best solution for the community,” Mr. Hodges explained.
Mr. Hodges will be working mainly with builders, building inspectors and householders during the workshop. “I think the message to get across is an understanding of what the problem is and then what the possible solutions are,” he stated.
