Empowered through training

Vulnerability Capacity Assessment (VCA) is taught at Jamaica Red Cross trainings across the island. It helps us to be prepared. But what does it really mean?

Let me explain it with the words of the participants at the VCA workshop in Cedar Valley a few weekends ago: “If there is a flood and there is an old man on the other side of the river, and the bridge is gone, we have a problem. If the man is hungry but has one leg and can’t cross the river to get his food, he needs help. We have food that we can bring to him. Maybe we can use a rope to get across the river with the food.”

– VCA involves finding the problems and the solution, says JRC trainer Ruth Chisholm. – By teaching people in the communities to help each other in times of trouble, we can reduce the effects of disasters.

A feeling of capability

At the VCA workshops, participants learn to see the problems and try to find feasible solutions. It is part of DIPECHO IV, where the Jamaica Red Cross works with six target communities to prepare them for disasters. The people living in the communities are the ones with the knowledge and the power to help each other in times of disasters, but in order to do so, they must feel capable.

During the course of several trainings, participants in Cedar Valley, White Horses, Savanna-la-Mar, Malvern, Balaclava and Ewarton are trained to be ready in times of disaster. They learn to assess the situations, and to pull together to reduce the damages as much as possible. Through mapping their own communities, they see where their strengths and weaknesses are. Problem trees are created to fine the roots of the problems, and the history of each community is recorded in detail.
– Cedar Valley got phone line in 1997, reports one of the participants. – What was the name of the first doctor here?

Down to the details

Participants are doing their assignments with more and more spirit as the day progresses. They run around and try to get more historical facts than the other groups, and collect vast amounts of information about their community. Their collective knowledge includes names of the postmistresses, when there were food shortages, coffee production, schools, roads and a
lot of other useful details. Community people are the ones who can really reduce vulnerability; they are the ones who know all the possible situations that can come up and how these problems can be fixed.

Empowering local resource persons to organize disaster response might be the key to reducing the disaster next time it strikes. It is better to be prepared.