Trinidad and Tobago: Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management and Rotary International partnership launch
Press release:
The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) of Trinidad and Tobago has integrated its Communities Ready and Organised for Emergencies (CORE) initiative with Rotary International’s Peace Through Service 2012-2013 vision. The main goals of this joint project with Rotary are to build better and resilient communities and nations, while recognising the global effects of climate change and the dwindling economic resources available to all nations.
This project also includes a corporate sponsored competition that allows Rotary clubs either in groups or individual Rotarians including members of Suriname, Guyana and Grenada to conduct service toward Disaster Management and Disaster Risk reduction, The winners will be recognised and rewarded at a prize giving ceremony in Honolulu 2013.
At the “Handing Over Ceremony of District Governor for District 7030”, Dr. Stephen Ramroop, Chief Executive Officer of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management and newly elected District Governor spoke on developing stronger rotary clubs, improving the quality of humanitarian programmes and working with clubs to promote “service above self”. Dr. Ramroop also emphasized the benefits of forging linkages with organisations such as Rotary and by engaging the wider public in Disaster Preparedness and Management. He applauded Former District Governor Lara’s astute efforts, hard work, dedication and commitment to performing her duties as the District Governor.
Additionally, he emphasized that her efforts will only be heightened by the partnering of CORE and Rotary members. Dr. Ramroop stated that this strategic alliance can be used to harvest the professional human resources of a wide range of professionals, both male and female Rotarians, who are happy to build community resilience. Structured under District 7030 which consists of 70 rotary clubs in 14 member states across the Caribbean and has 1.2 million members in 167 countries all over the world, this venture can prove to impact on different regions’ building of resilience at a greater level.
Dr. Ramroop also re-iterated that the ODPM partnership with Rotary District 7030 highlights the ODPM’s role in establishing a National Non-Governmental Platform by engaging Non-governmental organisations, Faith based organisations and International Corporate Sponsors in an initiative to institutionalise Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation capabilities with our partners and coordinate response and recovery operations in order to protect the people, environment, economy.