In an effort to tackle the demands that come with emergency situations, the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Society has launched the Humanitarian Academy for Research and Education.
President of the TTRCS, Jill De Bourg, emphasised the significance of leading with research.
“What that means is that we need to get more evidence-based, not just humanitarians but as a nation, and for us at this Academy, it will mean that we will dive into humanitarian research so that we have evidence-based decisions being made. Solutions will be developed based on information and evidence and not just based on your notion.”
For those that may have had the theoretical approach of learning in this field, the Academy allows for the practical.
“We have some exciting rooms in terms of simulation labs that will be used for crisis response as well as medical response, and this is to help persons who are doing theory get immersed into the idea of simulation so they get practice so that learning is concrete.”
TTRCS Marketing Manager, Natasha Ramnath, said through this initiative, participants will be better equipped to handle emergency situations as they present themselves.
“There are a lot of things that the general public doesn’t know that’s available at the Red Cross. So as a lay person, you can be in your home, you can have an emergency at your home. If you got trained in basic CPR, for example, which doesn’t take much of your time, you are in a position to help a family member. It’s as simple as that. It’s as simple as you can help a family member, you can help a friend, or you can be part of helping a community if there’s a disaster.”
Driving efforts towards advanced training in humanitarian service, TTRCS Crisis Management Coordinator Stephan Kishore said the classes will use virtual reality, a model of an ambulance, and CPR practices to simulate real-life situations.
“The other room is the medical simulation room where we are looking at building environments. So we are training emergency medical responders, emergency medical technicians. So we built a room that could be a modular so we could create an ambulance environment. So the back of the ambulance, so EMTs who are being trained, we don’t need to have a physical ambulance; we can set up our room to make it look like an ambulance so you can understand all the technology, so the equipment that will typically be in an ambulance but in the classroom setting.”
The Academy, which was founded to promote genuine humanitarianism, also aims to accelerate sustainable growth in the country and enable citizens with life skills that will prove helpful.