One of the mandates of HMCI is to increase the resilience of communities. The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programme is one such tool the agency uses to achieve this mandate. These teams are established under the HMCI preparedness programme and have their authority, existence and procedures established through the Cayman Islands Hazard Management legislation (draft) and C.I. National Disaster Management Plan and sub plans.
Hazard Management Cayman Islands and the Cayman Islands Red Cross have now successfully trained and established a number of CERT teams including in North Side, North Sound Gardens Community, West Bay, Little Cayman, Cayman Brac and Savannah Meadows.
The CERT Basic Training Course is designed to provide volunteers with the basic skills and information needed to be prepared for, and respond to, emergencies and disasters in the community. Upon successful completion of the course, participants receive a certificate verifying they completed the course. The volunteer group completing this training will be eligible to become registered with Hazard Management Cayman Islands as a bonafide CERT.
Purpose
The Cayman Islands Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programme is about strengthening community resilience through active community disaster risk management. The programme will deal with community disaster preparedness, community response and community risk assessment. The transfer of essential skills to enable a community to prepare, response and mitigate against hazards that they are vulnerable to is the foundation of the programme, hence it has an intense training component.
This training will entail basic disaster preparedness and response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, and disaster medical operations. Community vulnerability analysis is also included.
With proper training, knowledge gained the community will become more resilient to hazard occurrences.