We are one week into the hurricane season, and even though no storms have been coming our way yet, it's never too early to start preparing. We note though that the list of hurricane shelters has not been published yet.
For three villages in the west, they didn't have anywhere nearby to shelter - until today. Three shelters were inaugurated today in Santa Familia, Billy White, And Duck Run 3. And these shelters will double as community centers for the villagers.
Courtney Menzies was at the ceremony in Billy White and has this story.
The villagers of Billy White, Santa Familia, and Duck Run 3 are even more prepared this hurricane season after the inauguration of a community center-slash-hurricane shelter in each village.
In the small village of Billy White, the government, working alongside IOM and the EU, was able to refurbish an old building and enhance it to to withstand any storm, and serve the community year-round.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"This was an old building, part of an old school that was previously under the administration of the Seventh Day Adventist School from Santa Elena and now they moved over to another location where they have a new school and so we got the permission to use it and we refurbished it into a hurricane shelter/community center and the idea is also to have, in this one, a small area where we can have made something mobile for medical clinic if we have visiting doctors and stuff like that."
"We were thinking it was being over built but from all indications from the contractor and the architect because of the requirements from the European Union it has to be structurally sound to be resilient and the foundation is very strong, all the blocks that were used in the building are 8 inch blocks and filled so its real strong and should adapt not only to the climate but to the elements and also to any strong force winds."
And these three villages were selected because they are considered migrant communities and this initiative falls under a project organized by the IOM.
Diana Locke, Head of Office, IOM
"The general objective of the project is to support displaced persons in migrant settlements and assist them to become productive members of their host communities and participate in furthering their resilience, socioeconomic growth and sustainable development."
"All the hurricane shelters have been fitted with a water tank for use during emergencies and even perhaps during the course of the year as you use the community center for activities within the community. There's also a kitchenette and we have provided solar lighting which on the outside provides for additional security."
Aniceto Rodriguez Ruiz, Head of Cooperation, EU Delegation to Belize
"These are communities very concerned by migration, by movements of migrants coming from neighboring countries, and to make these communities more resilient to natural disaster and the most common natural disaster here is hurricanes and this building may be used to shelter people during the storm but also people who lost their homes can also be sheltered here until they fix their situation for the necessary time."
And it's not just the community center, but these communities were also gifted with a water bowser, which will come in extremely handy this time of year.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"If you notice and you saw also we have a garage on the right hand side where we will be housing a water truck, a bowser, that is equipped to out fires. Billy White, apart from being a low area, it has always been a problem for flooding and because of the flooding this has had all the vector diseases, chikungunya, dengue, malaria, you name it they have had it but through the project, we did about four miles of drainage and so last year when it was tested during the hurricane season we saw that all the water now flows out into the creeks and then to the river so that has been an advantage but also if you notice it's what they call a low pine ridge area where fires usually comes close to the community so with this water truck which will be housed here but will be used for all the communities in this area to assist in outing forest fires and fires that come near the urban areas."
And for the villagers of Billy White, today's inauguration signals big things for the future.
Roberto Garcia, Chairman, Billy White Village
"This beautiful building is a dream come through and a beacon of hope for additional positive things to come in the future. This shelter speaks to our desire to see Billy White develop and prosper into a better community."
The project with the EU has been in the works for the past two and a half years, and cost 5.2 million Belize dollars.
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