KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With three-six ma­jor hur­ri­canes fore­cast­ed in 2020’s above-av­er­age hur­ri­cane sea­son, the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion launched its Mas­ters of Prep game, aimed at teach­ing spe­cial needs stu­dents to iden­ti­fy and rem­e­dy po­ten­tial haz­ards.

At yes­ter­day’ launch at Dig­i­cel’s C3 Cen­tre out­let in Ste Madeleine, CEO of the Foun­da­tion Pen­ny Gomez said that with COVID-19 around, there is a dire need to ex­tend this emer­gency pre­pared­ness app to all stu­dents to en­sure a strong state of readi­ness.

Gomez said the teach­ing game is a first of its kind in the Caribbean. She said it would be used to train and ed­u­cate ad­min­is­tra­tors and stu­dents, and al­low them a vir­tu­al hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence in deal­ing with dis­as­ter sce­nar­ios.

It will al­so en­sure aware­ness of the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­ce­dures and re­spons­es that are need­ed. 
“Mas­ters of Prep forms an in­te­gral part of the Foun­da­tion’s ‘Prepar­ing You’ dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness pro­gramme. It is a vir­tu­al re­al­i­ty game con­cep­tu­alised by the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and the ODPM team in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Fire Ser­vice and ad­min­is­tra­tors and teach­ers from our spe­cial needs schools to give stu­dents, with dis­abil­i­ties, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to prac­tice re­al-world skills in a safe en­vi­ron­ment.

“As a tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven and ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing tool, the game was de­vel­oped by Cod­ed Arts as a gener­ic en­abler in fa­cil­i­tat­ing dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness fram­ing,” Gomez said.

In lead­ing up to the launch, the game was test­ed in six schools among spe­cial needs stu­dents be­tween the ages in six and 19. Foun­da­tion project of­fi­cer Na­tal­ie-Anne De Sil­va said the game cre­ates a sim­u­lat­ed en­vi­ron­ment of the home and school. Be­cause of the train­ing, stu­dents would be able to iden­ti­fy haz­ards and make rec­om­men­da­tions.

“There is a sce­nario on hur­ri­canes and floods. Through that sce­nario, you can go through the home, know­ing to board your win­dows, what you have to se­cure and see if there are any dam­ages or leaks. The sim­u­la­tion ex­er­cis­es are both in the school and home, so the stu­dents are fa­mil­iar with it, and it cre­ates a safe en­vi­ron­ment. They go through and get them­selves fa­mil­iar with what dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness is about,” De Sil­va said.

Yes­ter­day’s launch formed part of the Foun­da­tion’s ‘Prepar­ing You’ project, which it launched in 2015. It is a dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and emer­gency evac­u­a­tion pi­lot project for per­sons with spe­cial needs. The Foun­da­tion col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) and is co-fund­ed by the Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty (GEF) Small Grants Pro­gramme (SGP) un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP). 

The La­dy Ho­choy School in Pe­nal, La­dy Ho­choy School in Gas­par­il­lo, Pointe-a-Pierre Spe­cial School, Rio Claro Learn­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre and Ser­vol Hap­py Ven­ture have all ben­e­fit­ed from the project. With the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank’s in­no­va­tion lab­o­ra­to­ry part­ner­ing, the project now reach­es 18 schools na­tion­wide.

Dur­ing Phase 1 the Foun­da­tion and ODPM trained 31 spe­cial needs teach­ers and care­givers in dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and evac­u­a­tion strate­gies. The project is now in Phase 2, which in­cludes the use of al­ter­nate teach­ing tools. The Foun­da­tion plans to up­grade school in­fra­struc­ture and safe­ty equip­ment in Phase 3.

Gomez said the pro­gramme was de­signed to ex­tent po­ten­tial and es­sen­tial­ly life-sav­ing ca­pac­i­ty build­ing in dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and emer­gency evac­u­a­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties. The Fire Ser­vice pro­vid­ed risk as­sess­ments for the project and the Red Cross So­ci­ety trained teach­ers and care­givers in first aid and do­nat­ed 100 first aid kits.

“The Foun­da­tion has in­tro­duced tech­nol­o­gy for train­ing, con­tent de­vel­op­ment and de­liv­ery. It is in the process of map­ping crit­i­cal da­ta on tar­get­ed in­sti­tu­tions for stu­dents and teach­ers/care­givers to en­sure a pri­ori­tised and tar­get­ed re­sponse by the na­tion­al agen­cies in the event of a dis­as­ter.”

The game is avail­able on Google’s Play Store while the Foun­da­tion works to make it avail­able on iOS de­vices.