Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

As the world cel­e­brat­ed In­ter­na­tion­al Vol­un­teer Day on Sat­ur­day, Ma­jor Gen­er­al (Re­tired) Rod­ney Smart, CEO, of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) is call­ing on cit­i­zens to of­fer their ser­vices to the or­gan­i­sa­tion so if T&T is hit by a ma­jor dis­as­ter, the coun­try will be bet­ter pre­pared.

“For those who have the de­sire for na­tion­al ser­vice, I in­vite you to en­rol in the ODPM’s na­tion­al Vol­un­teer Pro­gramme. We have space for you. T&T needs you. We have been told that we are chal­lenged by cli­mate change. We have been told that dis­as­ters will be a reg­u­lar part of the fu­ture. We can­not wait un­til our coun­try suf­fers a dis­as­ter,” he said.

Smart spoke at the re­launch of the ODPM Vol­un­teer Pro­gramme at the Al­ter­nate Na­tion­al Emer­gency Op­er­a­tion Cen­tre in Mau­si­ca.

At the mo­ment there are 65 vol­un­teers who of­fer their ser­vices to the ODPM.

He added that the ODPM is pay­ing clos­er at­ten­tion to “dig­i­tal vol­un­teerism” which is util­is­ing the dif­fer­ent skills and re­sources among cit­i­zens to sup­port na­tion­al dis­as­ter man­age­ment.

“Dur­ing this hur­ri­cane sea­son, the ODPM en­gaged reg­is­tered un­manned aer­i­al sur­veil­lance ve­hi­cles to sup­port re­con­nais­sance and risk as­sess­ments. The ODPM has al­so en­gaged recre­ation­al clubs that con­tin­ue to pro­vide sup­port to cit­i­zens af­fect­ed by flood­ing.”

He al­so said that vol­un­teerism is deeply em­bed­ded in T&T’s cul­ture and when dis­as­ter strikes this spir­it of vol­un­teerism height­ens.

“Let us bring back the old-time days with a mod­ern twist in which we help each oth­er while strate­gi­cal­ly us­ing the var­i­ous tech­nolo­gies, ca­pa­bil­i­ties and re­sources avail­able to us. De­spite high­ly spe­cialised and ca­pa­ble emer­gency man­age­ment sys­tems, or­di­nary cit­i­zens in com­mu­ni­ties are usu­al­ly first on the scene of a dis­as­ter.”

He said there are a wide ar­ray of ar­eas in which or­di­nary cit­i­zens can as­sist and these in­clude cit­i­zens vol­un­teer­ing to as­sist in giv­ing in­for­ma­tion in schools or they can as­sist in com­mu­ni­ty drills or as­sist in Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment or fi­nance.

Gary Joseph, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who al­so spoke at the event said there is no bet­ter com­fort in life than as­sist­ing oth­ers in the na­tion’s com­mu­ni­ties.

“Peo­ple face trau­ma hav­ing to go through a flood and lose every­thing. As some­one who is in your com­mu­ni­ty, speak to some­one else or give them a plate of food or a mat­tress in times of need.”

He added that the Vol­un­teer Pro­gramme is an ex­am­ple of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s com­mit­ment to fa­cil­i­tate bet­ter part­ner­ship be­tween state agen­cies, the pri­vate sec­tor, Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Agen­cies (NGO’s) and oth­er stake­hold­ers.