Some twenty persons have graduated after having been initially trained as volunteers by a number of facilitators to render relief services to the people of Anguilla in times of disaster.
The Community Response Basic 1 Training was carried out under the auspices of the local branch of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). The branch was set up in Anguilla following the passage of Hurricane Irma on September 6, 2017.
The presentation of certificates of completion was held at the District Office of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on the Stoney Ground Road on Saturday evening, June 23. The certificates were presented by Mrs. Maria Webster, Director of the ADRA Committee in Anguilla; the Deputy Director, Mrs. Delrose Berg, the wife of Pastor Trent Berg the District Minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church; and Methodist Minister, Rev. Lindsay Richardson, a course facilitator who also serves as a Social Worker at Her Majesty’s Prison.
Mrs. Webster commended ADRA’s Deputy Director, Mrs. Delrose Berg, who, among other matters, did much of the background work including the arrangement for the facilitators to conduct the training. In addition to Rev. Richardson, the other facilitators were: Fire Officers Mr. Omari Bourne and Mr. Romuro Richardson; Mr. Kasseem Forde; Ms. Melisa Meade, Director of Disaster Management; Ms. Jiva Niles; and Mr. Alwyn Richardson.
Mrs. Webster highly commended the facilitators for their work. “I really commend them for giving so willingly of their time and effort so that we can gain knowledge that would make us better helpers in the community for Christ,” she said.
Rev. Lindsay Richardson, who facilitated part of the training in psych-social solutions support, took the opportunity to congratulate the ADRA Committee for its work and those who attended the training. He was asked by The Anguillian to explain his area of the training course.
“In recent years there has been an increased attention to this aspect of supporting people who have gone through traumatic experiences such as natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados and the like,” he stated. “It is an effort to assist persons who need basic psychological support which is not at the level of professional help or counselling. It is just to be present with persons going through the trauma in the initial stage and to give them the practical support they need. It is also to enable them to get some initial release which they may be seeking in the aftermath of a disaster.”
Rev. Richardson continued: “A group of us were initially trained in as a Community Response Team and we have had follow-up training. For the past two to three years we have been going from community to community in Anguilla holding the same training sessions to equip people to be Community Response Team members. ADRA has now joined the family, so to speak, and a number of persons have completed the first phase of the training. There is further training to be carried out and plans have already been made for that.”
