分类： society

As climate change and global development drive more frequent, complex and unpredictable hazards across the globe, small island developing states like Barbados face disproportionately high risk — pushing the country’s emergency management officials to step up investment in civil servant training to boost national disaster response capacity. A two-day interactive workshop, hosted at the University of the West Indies Law Library, has brought together public officers from across government departments and statutory bodies to refine their understanding of the National Emergency Management System, strengthen cross-agency communication and coordination, and build hands-on emergency management skills.

Major Robert Harewood, Deputy Director of Barbados’ Department of Emergency Management (DEM), opened the workshop by emphasizing the urgent timing of this initiative, noting that rising hazard intensity is a shared global challenge. “Today, every country, institution and community around the world faces growing risks from a wide spectrum of disasters, ranging from natural events like hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts and earthquakes to technological accidents and public health emergencies,” Harewood explained. “No community is immune to the devastating impacts of these events.”

Citing joint analysis from the European Commission and regional climate experts, Harewood highlighted that the Caribbean ranks as the second most hazard-prone region globally. For small island developing states like Barbados, growing climate uncertainty, combined with rapid urbanization and increasingly interconnected national economies, has made disaster response coordination far more complex than in decades past. Recent global events, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the recent major earthquake off the coast of Venezuela, have underscored just how critical pre-crisis preparedness and cross-agency coordination are to saving lives.

“Preparedness and coordination save lives. Effective disaster management cannot be improvised in the middle of a crisis,” Harewood stressed. “It requires deliberate planning, ongoing training, cross-sector partnerships and a whole-of-government approach that is put in place long before an emergency ever occurs.”

Harewood went on to note that disaster management extends far beyond on-the-ground response during crises — it is a core legal, institutional and governance responsibility for all government branches. Under Barbados’ 2007 Emergency Management Act, the government established a national, inclusive emergency management framework built on a bottom-up approach that assigns clear roles to every public sector entity. Section 12 of Part Five of the legislation explicitly requires every permanent secretary and government department head to appoint a dedicated liaison officer to coordinate with the DEM, and mandate that each agency update and submit its emergency management plan to the DEM for review by April 1 every year.

No matter what core public service a government agency provides — from health care and education to transportation, public works, utility management or public safety — maintaining operational continuity during and after a disaster is foundational to national resilience, Harewood explained. This makes it essential for every agency to maintain up-to-date disaster contingency and business continuity plans that outline how the organization will sustain critical services, respond to the event and support recovery. “These plans help organizations anticipate risks, outline clear response procedures, identify available resources, clarify stakeholder responsibilities, and guarantee operational continuity when normal systems are disrupted,” Harewood said, adding that agencies with trained staff and regularly tested plans recover far faster and are able to provide more consistent support to affected communities.

Julia Rawlins-Bentham, a DEM Programme Officer, outlined that the workshop has a dual purpose: it orients newly appointed liaison officers to their roles, and refreshes the knowledge of experienced officers to ensure alignment with current national protocols. “This training is for everyone, whether you are new to the liaison role or have served in this position for years,” Rawlins-Bentham said. Over the two days, participants take part in a range of activities designed to build both theoretical knowledge and practical skills, including informational presentations on the DEM’s mandate, the structure of the National Emergency Management System, contingency planning best practices, and the core responsibilities of liaison officers.

Harewood emphasized that disaster management is a shared collective responsibility, not a task that falls solely to emergency services or the DEM. “It requires sustained commitment from every sector and every public institution across the country,” he said. By the conclusion of the workshop, participants are expected to leave with a clearer understanding of liaison officer roles and responsibilities, stronger communication and information sharing networks across stakeholder agencies, and the ability to support coordinated, effective emergency operations when disaster strikes.

At a recent virtual gathering focused on intercontinental cultural collaboration, leading cultural preservation advocates have emphasized that active youth participation stands as a make-or-break factor for the long-term survival of cultural heritage across both Barbados and the African continent. The urgent appeal was delivered during the Office of Pan-African Affairs and Heritage’s annual Heritage Month youth webinar, an event that convened hundreds of young cultural stakeholders from both regions to exchange ideas on protecting collective cultural traditions, historic landmarks, and shared communal identities.

Dr. Sheron Johnson, Heritage Month Coordinator for the Office of Pan-African Affairs and Heritage, explained that the annual webinar was intentionally structured to center youth perspectives in global conversations about heritage stewardship, a space that has long been dominated by established institutions and older experts. “As part of our core mandate to build long-term stewardship capacity across the heritage sector, each year we create a dedicated platform for young people to share their thoughts and take ownership of preservation work,” Johnson said during the opening remarks.

She pushed back against the widespread misconception that heritage protection falls exclusively to government bodies, formal cultural institutions, and senior academic experts, arguing that younger generations bring irreplaceable value to the movement. “All too often, heritage preservation is framed as a job for established organizations and long-time specialists. But young people hold an equally critical role in safeguarding the stories, traditions, ancestral spaces, and core values that shape who we are as communities,” Johnson noted.

She added that the unique combination of youth creativity, digital innovation, boundless energy, and fresh commitment is essential to making heritage feel relevant to contemporary and future generations, rather than a static artifact of the past. Johnson also highlighted that the webinar forms part of a broader diplomatic and cultural push to deepen ties between Barbados and African nations, most notably Kenya, where Barbados recently opened a dynamic embassy to cement cross-continental collaboration.

“Barbados is moving quickly to build and solidify meaningful partnerships across the African continent. As many know, we have launched a thriving embassy in Nairobi, and today’s conversation is a direct extension of that commitment to building people-to-people bridges between our regions,” she explained.

The event’s featured special guest, Khaulah Abdulkadir, a rising young Kenyan expert in cultural heritage conservation, echoed the call for broad public engagement, particularly from younger demographics, to keep heritage alive. “Heritage cannot survive without people. Our collective memories, cultural practices, and shared histories depend on active participation from communities to endure,” Abdulkadir said. She went on to outline the multifaceted benefits of intentional heritage stewardship, noting that it provides marginalized and local communities with a renewed sense of confidence, cultural pride, collective identity, and tangible economic opportunities through cultural tourism and heritage-related enterprise.

Abdulkadir encouraged young people around the world to start their heritage journey by building connections to their own cultural roots, through engagement with elder community members, master artisans, and local cultural organizations. “To protect something, you first have to understand it and feel connected to it,” she said. She outlined accessible entry points for young people interested in the field, including visiting local museums, reading independent histories of their regions, attending public educational events like the webinar, and following the work of global heritage bodies such as UNESCO on digital platforms.

“Volunteering is almost always the first step into the heritage preservation field. When you show up and contribute your time, casual interest grows into meaningful, lasting impact,” Abdulkadir said. Drawing from her own professional path, she shared that her career in conservation began with volunteer work in Kenya’s UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lamu Old Town, where she supported projects to digitize fragile historical manuscripts and document at-risk traditional cultural practices for future generations. That hands-on community work, she explained, gave her first-hand insight into how local heritage stewardship can help communities protect culturally significant sites from the growing threats posed by climate change, including coastal erosion and extreme weather.

The youth-focused webinar is one of dozens of events hosted during this year’s Heritage Month, all designed to break down barriers to youth participation in heritage work and strengthen people-to-people cultural ties between Barbados and the African continent.