A TOTAL of 412 persons from six Administrative Regions in the country have, so far, been trained under the Civil Defence Commission’s (CDC) Volunteer Corps for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) launched in October 2012.

This was disclosed by CDC Director General, Colonel (ret’d) Chabilall Ramsarup in a Wednesday interview at his Thomas Lands, Georgetown office.
According to him, the regions in which training has been done are One (Barima/Waini), Three (Essequibo Islands/West Demerara), Four (Demerara/Mahaica), Six (East Berbice/Corentyne), Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) and Ten (Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice).
He said, in all those regions, there was a good turnout of persons, highlighting Region Six where some 60 persons attended.
Ramsarup indicated that they did not expect such a large response to the volunteer system.
He said the CDC is putting in place regional disaster plans while, concurrently, advertising the volunteer corps system.
People have been trained in shelter and shelter management, damage assessment and needs analysis, as well as emergency operation centre managing in those regions and they hope to do the same in the four other regions this year.
Ramsarup added that it is hoped the Regional Executive Officer can take care of their individual regions, with support from the CDC and the Central Government.

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He said, for the regions in which the exercise has been completed, they are now in the process of categorising the volunteers, through a computer based management method.
Ramsarup said they are trying to place these persons into categories on the basis of their profession and location, so that, in event that a disaster does occur, they will know how many persons can be made available to the communities.
He explained that they also plan to expand the network this year, once they get what is requested in the National Budget.
Ramsarup said they will be getting help from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to establish the system in its entirety.