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If you've ever been in an emergency you'd know that the outcome of the situation is often dependent on how quickly first responders can arrive on the scene. That response time can be stalled in a world of crossed phone lines and dropped calls, and more often than not neighbors have had to become impromptu first responders. 

Well the City Emergency Management Organization and the Belize Red Cross have spent the last year training up a group of would-be community first responders from the Southside. Cherisse Halsall got to see them in action today. Here's that story. 

This was the scene on Faber’s Road this morning that was just a simulation. It’s a capacity building initiative that comes at the end of a joint project between City Emergency Management and the Belize Red Cross to train community members for the Jane Usher, Collet, and Lake I areas to be volunteer first responders.

Melanie Dawson - CEMO Liaison Officer, CITCO
"So the overall purpose of this simulation is for these community members to be prepared in times of disaster meaning that we train them in shelter management emergency operation centre we train them in basic first aid and one of the major ones was search and rescue because as we all know in times of disaster in Belize City a lot of people get trapped in their homes etc. so we would have to go out and help them get out of these situations so what we do is we train them now at the end of the day we want to see if they learned from all these trainings that we gave. The Belize City Council came in along with the Belize Red Cross in order to make this disaster preparedness easier for us meaning that when it comes to different communities we train them to let it fall easier for the Belize City council because we all know that we work along with the communities in times of disaster at the EOC. Now since they are receiving this training they could know how to better respond in times of disaster and that would give us an ease in the EOC." 

Project Manager Jessie Young told us just how many moving parts were involved in the simulation and the training that preceded it.

Jesse Young - Project Manager, Capacity Building initiative Project
"We have worked in over 79 communities within the country training community disaster response teams this year we decided to work in 3 vulnerable communities in Belize city and as a result that is how we partnered with CEMO which is NEMO as well because the communities in the city falls under them and so we partner with them and so the CEMO committee consists of the fire department the coast guard, the BDF, the ministry of health, ministry of education, some of them are right out here with us today to assist in this simulation exercise so the partnership is great and I must thank them for all the partnership that we have had over the period of time."

And we got a chance to speak to some of the participants, ordinary citizens and volunteers who showed their metal today. One of those Volunteers Marleen Garvin, told us that they’ve been training for the better part of a year. 

Marleen Garvin - Head Liaison, CDRT
"I’ve learned a lot. It's been an ongoing intense training. It's like every time directly from work we go to a 5:30 until about 6:00, 7:00 o’clock in the evening training. I think it started in the latter part of last year until now it’s every, and weekends as well, we did several training sessions when it comes to for example first aid search and rescue and things like that. I’ve really learned a lot and the addition to it is that you apply yourself while they train you do like the theory and practical at the same time so it’s a rounded training. What I have learned surprisingly I took home so I in turn educate my daughters and things so they in turn learn about what I have learned."

Another volunteer Karina Mancia, a homemaker, told us that she feels much better prepared to lend a helping hand when emergency situations arise in her neighbourhood.

Karina Mancia - IC, Search and Rescue Training
"I am in charge of the search and rescue being that I was one that went to the search and rescue training. It was a tense, tense training most practical."

Reporter
"What do you normally do for a living?"

Karina Mancia
"House wife."

Reporter
"So what made you feel the need to get involved in something like this?"

Karina Mancia
"The area where I live, I'm part of the Collet neighbourhood. It's the need for a lot of these trainings that I went to being that we are part of the Southside. Most of the hurricane and stuff does affect us there the most, flooding and stuff like that. So I believe that it is a need and it's very important for most of us to participate in things like this."

Participants have also been trained in Public Health Emergency in the hopes that they might better understand how to advise their fellow citizens on quarantine protocols in the case of an epidemic such as the coronavirus.