When she heard that Hurricane Dean was coming, Reena Faley, who lived alone on Beach Road in Prospect, St Thomas, knew she had to leave her board house which was at risk of collapsing.

Her neighbours provided shelter as Dean swept relentlessly across the island in 2007, taking the security of her humble dwelling with it.

It is a memory that Reena will not soon forget. For a while, she bunked with neighbours and friends. But today, she lives in a newly constructed one-bedroom structure, a gift from the Construction Resource Development Centre (CRDC).

Reena's assistance came through the Prospect Disaster Committee (PDC). The committee is a 15-member group, comprising mostly women. Their objective is to educate the community on safety measures, before and during man-made or natural disasters.

further strengthened

The group was set up by the Social Development Commission and was further strengthened with the help of other entities, such as the Red Cross, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), the CRDC and other non-governmental organisations.

"The committee's first major disaster experience was during the passage of Hurricane Dean," recalled Joy Powell, chairperson of the PDC.

"It was eye-opening for me and others. You live in the community, but you do not know all the persons and you do not know the conditions in which they are living ... . It was quite an experience," she said.

Even with those thoughts in their heads, group members were prepared to deal with the situation.

They took the time to map the communities in order to identify at-risk areas and homes and point out suitable places for shelters.

The fact that not all shelters were equipped with adequate first-aid supplies proved quite challenging. First-aid equipment was usually provided by ODPEM and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, but sometimes was inadequate. Insufficient food supplies were also a major stumbling block.

Apart from replacing hurricane-destroyed homes, Powell said the CRDC had also been offering free training seminars on various aspects of disaster.

assistance

Director of the CRDC, Carmen Griffiths, said that long before the disaster group was formed, her organisation had been offering assistance in the areas of water and sanitation to community groups in the parish.

She said that about three training sessions on building-construction techniques against natural disasters were held with community members from approximately 27 communities. The Prospect team was one of the many groups that attended these sessions.

"We wanted a group of women who, even if they couldn't do it, would actually have a good understanding of how it is done. We got into the whole thing of mapping, of looking at what areas would be vulnerable should a natural disaster happen, to produce maps showing the women what their vulnerabilities were," she said.

The CRDC was also instrumental in arranging an exchange programme for Powell to attend a two-week disaster course in Guatemala, which brought together women from a number of Latin American countries. The programme was part of activities to celebrate the International Day of Disaster Reduction in collaboration with Gra** Root Women Operating Together in Sisterhood International.

"Women would be able to share their ideas and to see what practices were happening elsewhere in the world that were either relevant to them or that they could adapt or learn from," explained Griffiths.

Powell said the most important aspects of the programme that she hoped to introduce to the community was "education and getting the community interested in preparedness" .

"We could have an earthquake, we could have fire and flooding and, of course, Jamaica is inside the hurricane belt, so we need to be prepared. I plan to have assimilation programmes. I'll start with the smaller children in the basic schools and hope they will take the information home to their parents," added Powell.

pleased

Luther Cummings, parish manager of the Social Development Commission, said he was extremely pleased with the work of the PDC. One of their major activities, he said, was to do an assessment of the community within 24 hours and have a report ready for agencies, such as the SDC and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

"When the agencies are ready to send their representatives to assess the communities, this has already been done and all they need to do is to verify the information," he explained.