District Emergency Organisations (DEO) across the island are in need of volunteers.
Pointing out that the various outfits are involved in several programmes and projects in their respective communities, Jocelyn Trotman of the St. Peter DEO insisted that more hands are needed.
“One of our major problems is getting people to volunteer. Volunteering is a big problem because when you go out there in the community asking people to come out and help and what-not, the first thing they ask id ‘how much are you paying me?’” she lamented.
However, she highlighted that the various units are there to help those in the community who may be negatively impacted during a disaster, and encouraged persons to foster their own community spirit of wanting to help out their fellow man without payment.
Speaking on some of the activities her own DEO has been involved in, she said that last month it held a bulk cleanup of areas of St. Peter, where 40 tonnes of garbage, including fridges, stoves and other large appliances, were removed from gullies, waterways and illegal dumping areas.
Roderick Yarde of the St. George DEO also noted that these organisations are not only for hurricanes, but for making preparations for the possibility of an earthquake or major fire.
“So before any impact, we go into the communities and try to sensitise the people living in the communities on what they need to do to prepare themselves, as you must appreciate the fact that the first level of response is at the individual level not the DEO. We then share whatever knowledge we have to make the community resilient to whatever disasters, and do pre-impact assessments where persons in the community tell us what are the areas of concern – whether it is a blocked well, illegal dumping…and then we give guidance as to how these could be addressed,” he said, while encouraging more citizens to come on board.
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