The National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) will be hosting a one-day training session—“Understanding Disaster Risk Management for Media Practitioners”—on Saturday, March 9.

The training is organized and delivered through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Coordinating Unit based in Barbados, in collaboration with NEMO. It seeks to impart knowledge on disaster risk management principles in relation to the media’s operations before, during and after an emergency/disaster. The aim is to provide professional media practitioners and their counterparts including information officers throughout the public sector with useful knowledge for real life applications.

The facilitator for the training will be Mr. Clive Murray, Communication and Education Specialist, CDEMA.

The objectives of the training are to introduce the concepts and principles of basic Disaster Risk Management; improve understanding of Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) and the media’s role in supporting CDM implementation at the national level; improve understanding of  the National Disaster Management Systems and the Regional Response Mechanism (RRM); introduce the protocols for reporting before, during and after a disaster event; and highlight the importance of building the resilience of the media and the role of media in a disaster context.

The training session will be held at the NEMO headquarters in Bisee, Castries, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

NEMO will also be holding a media launch of Public Service Announcements(PSAs) for Disaster Risk Management such as Tsunamis, Earthquake and Hurricanes. The launch will be from 9 to 10 a.m. on March 12, at the NEMO headquarters in Bisee.