In support of their mutual interest in disaster prevention and management in the Caribbean Community, the bank pledged further financial support to CDERA during a brief handover ceremony at the bank’s Regional Head Office. 

FirstCaribbean International Bank and CDERA signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding in 2003, signaling their intention to vastly improve the region’s response capability to natural & other disasters.

Under the MOU the bank annually contributes US$75,000 to CDERA. Areas of collaboration include: support for CDERA’s Regional Response Mechanism, a facility for bringing together key response agencies in support of affected states through the establishment of the FirstCaribbean International Bank Disaster Management Fund; training and Certification of builders and artisans to encourage a strengthening of the housing stock to make it more resistant to natural hazard impacts; assistance with the production of literature on disaster mitigation and national building codes for home-owners and a scholarship fund for study in Disaster Management.

The bank’s Chief Administrative Officer & Executive Director of Marketing & Human Resources, Peter Hall, noted that the FirstCaribbean Comtrust Foundation, which administers the MOU, had built its strategy around five key areas of focus. “We are committed to tangibly supporting our region in its time of need whenever it arises.  This partnership makes good on our promise to provide assistance to those communities in urgent need of infrastructural and other support.”

CDERA’s Coordinator, Jeremy Collymore observed that the vulnerability of island states to natural disasters necessitated the involvement of both private and public sector stakeholder partners.  “We are therefore proud of our strategic alliance with FirstCaribbean and our joint commitment to establishing mechanisms to support the advancement of disaster management within the Caribbean region,” he said.

Scholarships
To date, three students have been awarded scholarships under the MOU.  They are Jamaican, Kylah Forbes-Biggs; Leonard Huggins of St Kitts & Nevis and Barbadian, Karla Sealy. Advertising for the 2006 CDERA/FirstCaribbean Scholarship has begun in earnest, with a stipulated deadline of June 30, 2006. 

Ms Forbes-Biggs is pursuing an MPhil in Environmental Management (Geography) at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.  Her research is focusing on ‘The Role of Environmental Resource Management in Reducing Losses from Hurricane-related Hazard Impact – A Case Study of the Montego Bay Marine Park’.

Mr Huggins is pursuing a PhD in Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Huggins’s dissertation is entitled ‘Sustainable Disaster Management, Poverty, Reduction and Development: An Exploratory Analysis of the Role of Geo-information and Geo-collaboration in Mitigation and Recovery from Hurricane-related Disasters in the Eastern Caribbean’. Mr Huggins embarked on this discourse due to what he perceives as the inadequacy of timely, valid information on disaster management and mitigation that has led to a cumulative decline in the economic viability of various states.

Barbadian Karla Sealy intends to pursue a Diploma in Disaster Management offered by the Disaster Management Centre of the University of Wisconsin. The course is to be undertaken through the use of the distance-learning programme. The Diploma in Disaster Management is a personal self-study programme in which a student may combine courses from the institution with courses from any other organization in the world. The Diploma seeks to encourage and facilitate professional development in the field of disaster/emergency management. The primary goal of the programme is to assist in the improvement of emergency management performance of non-governmental organizations, local and national governments and international organizations.