Taking a page from the book of the International Federation with its long established Reserve Fund for Disaster Management, the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Society recently established a Disaster Preparedness and Relief Fund, to service mainly its local constituents in the event of a disaster.

In the past, the normal practice would be simply to launch an appeal for monetary assistance to support the specific emergency need.
The nature of “being prepared” though mandates that all national societies increase their capacities in all the areas of preparedness.

 In 2005 globally, we were overwhelmed at the fallout from the numerous disasters and the magnitude and cost of the rebuilding and restoration of lives and properties.

In our case, the devastating flooding from Emily and the storm surges that occurred along the north coast and other areas of Trinidad and Tobago during the last hurricane season, are only two examples of how badly livelihoods can be affected, and there were many more.

On December 22nd 1989, the United Nations General Assembly designated the second Wednesday of October as International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. In 2001 they took a decision to keep this day in focus permanently, to underscore its importance “as a vehicle to promote a global culture of natural disaster reduction, including disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness.”

Preparedness includes not only having a stock of goods, and money available for a disastrous event but having the financial capacity to continually prepare communities to be ready and resilient. This includes training, simulation interventions, developing learning tools that can remain with the communities as a part of their preparedness/ emergency plans, and much more.

The TTRCS is appealing to the public for on going contributions to be able to build up a fund that will be utilized locally to assist our own vulnerable communities. The response to external disasters has traditionally been magnanimous, we are trying to encourage more of that humanitarian response locally.

To give to the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Disaster Preparedness and Relief Fund please send your contribution today to Republic Bank, account number 180466501801. Help us to help our communities to be prepared.