Enhancing community resilience to disaster risk in the Caribbean region

The Canadian Red Cross, with support from the Government of Canada, has completed a three-year project in three countries in the Caribbean to help reduce the impact emergencies on communities. The Caribbean region is highly vulnerable to disasters such as tropical storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods.  It is important that communities in the region are provided with the knowledge and skills needed to reduce the impact of emergencies.

The Caribbean Community Resilience to Disaster Risk (CCRDR) project helped communities to identify and analyze risks and hazards in their local environment, to adopt behaviours that will make their homes and communities safer and be able to respond to disasters.

Implemented in 45 communities in Jamaica, Guyana and Dominica, the project generated positive impacts at the regional, state and community levels.

Some of the key project achievements include:

• Training and equipping 830 Community Disaster Response Team members across the Caribbean
• Disseminating 10,024 family disaster plans
• Conducting assessments of 45 communities’ vulnerabilities and capacities with community members in Jamaica, Guyana and Dominica.

The project also measured an increase in 37 per cent in community preparedness across the communities in Guyana and Jamaica using data collected by the Johns Hopkins Community Disaster Risk Reduction Monitoring and Evaluation tool.

Click here to view four films produced by the Canadian Red Cross on the CCRDR project.

In addition to the films, four information graphics were produced by the Canadian Red Cross on the CCRDR project:

Red Cross leadership

Reducing Disaster Risk

Supporting communities

Canada and the Red Cross