"Rough Season" to prepare Caribbean for disasters

"This year's hurricane season is already proving to be an active one and Caribbean people cannot afford to be complacent. We need to learn from each others experiences and develop a culture of emergency preparedness.

Building a culture of resilience requires active and knowledgeable citizens and informed and proactive decision makers." This was the warning from PAHO's Environmental Health Advisor, Dr Avril Siung-Chang.

She was the time speaking at the launch of an audio soap opera titled "The Rough Season" produced by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Federation) in collaboration with the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), the International Strategy for Risk Reduction (ISDR) and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) to prepare the Caribbean population for disasters.

Based on the highly successful radio novellas of Central America , the Caribbean audio soap is aimed at raising awareness and changing behaviour regarding disaster and risk reduction. It is expected that the project will result in the reduced impact of disasters through the saving of lives, and the protection of human health, resources and assets.

The material was developed at the average reading level to ensure maximum understanding and listenership. While the audio soap opera's main target medium is radio, other possible uses of the material include schools broadcasting; educational workshops and training activities by disaster management agencies, community and youth groups, religious and other organizations. In the longer term, the audio soap opera can be adapted to theatre and expanded to include video.

Dr Siung-Chang, also noted that the year 2004 was not good for the Caribbean in terms of Natural Disasters "I think that it is safe to say that the level of distress and physical destruction experienced was greatly reduced where the populations were better prepared."

Mr Luis Carpio, Director, Natural Disasters and Transport at the ACS said "The Rough Season" was born out of the need to continue to provide information and training for the people of the Caribbean where historical and statistical evidence points to a trend of increased disasters in this region.

Ms Julia Brothwell, Co-ordinator of the Federation's Port-of-Spain Office said the challenge in disaster management has always been to raise the public's awareness of risk to prepare themselves for any disaster. "With regards to hurricanes, this is particularly a problem in countries that are rarely affected. Decades can go by without impact or damage, and the sense of real risk is lost, often leading to apathy or complacency."

She said that by using the drama and story line of a soap opera, they hoped to capture the interest of the audience. In between all the excitement, safety messages are played in conversations amongst the characters. These messages include hurricane preparedness, health safety, building codes and the value of community response or groups.

The soap opera was done by Arts in Action and while the project content is driven by the mandates of the agencies involved, the underlying theme is consistent - reduction of risk. The script and its characters encompass the attitudes and personalities that one might expect to encounter in a typical Caribbean scene.

Each of the 15 episodes of the radio soap opera is of ten minutes duration. Musical interludes are also included. A number of evaluation and monitoring tools will be utilized to measure the success of the project. These will include surveys of radio stations, schools and other entities broadcasting the soap opera.