News

The Cayman Islands Red Cross (CIRC) is proud to announce the launch of its new project, "RISE" (Resilience Initiative for Students and Educators). Though the European Union’s RESEMBID Programme, CI$350,000[NP1] (€396,000) has been allocated to CIRC to aid in improving the islands' resilience in partnership with the Ministry and Department of Education through the RISE project and its work with the island's schools.  The RISE project is focused on increasing resilience in the Cayman Islands community in accordance with RESEMBID's goals of helping Caribbean OCTS adapt to extreme and recurrent natural events.

RISE is one of 48 projects being implemented through the Caribbean Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) Resilience, Sustainable Energy, and Marine Biodiversity Programme (RESEMBID), a €42.6M programme financed by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France, the development cooperation agency of France, in collaboration with GFDRR (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery) and The World Bank.  Eight of these projects have been awarded to agencies here in Cayman under the oversight of the Cabinet Office.   

With the cooperation of the Ministry and Department of Education CIRC has identified two areas of focus to achieve its goal of improving resilience in Cayman schools.

First, the CIRC will develop and provide a free resilience curriculum to the Ministry of Education, consisting of a digital resource library for Cayman Islands school teachers, containing age-appropriate videos, lesson plans, and other resources to teach resilience in a culturally appropriate way.   Second, CIRC will partner with the Ministry of Education to establish a cadre of teachers and staff who will be trained as qualified First Aid instructors who will then train additional teachers across all government schools in the Cayman Islands, building the capacity for the school system to increase the number of First Aid trained staff.

RISE’s curriculum learning objectives include contributing to the increased societal resilience of the Cayman Islands to adapt to extreme and recurrent man-made and natural disasters, and fostering a generation of Cayman school children who are better prepared in the areas of health and hygiene, natural disaster preparedness and response, and child safety and well-being. The full curriculum will be made available for free to all primary school teachers in The Cayman Islands, with the goal reaching approximately 500 primary school students.  Additional CIRC resources will be focused on educating secondary school students on disaster preparedness. Programme Manager for Resilience for RESEMBID, Edward Turvill said, “RISE is one of the real change makers under the Resilience portfolio by virtue of how many people and age groups the learnings will positively impact. We are happy to have financed this project though the European Union and look forward to receiving the results and outcomes from the Cayman Islands Red Cross”.

As part of the educational program, CIRC will produce a series of educational videos.  The videos will feature the popular characters Bobo and Teedee as well as local first responders from various emergency response agencies.  These resources will highlight the amazing work Cayman first responders do to keep the islands safe as well as help teach students important lessons on staying safe and healthy. The curriculum will be designed as a holistic unit of learning and will be developed using educational best practices.

The First Aid training component of the project will involve CIRC training 10 school staff members as First Aid instructors who will then train 20 additional staff members at their school in First Aid.   All schools will also be provided with all the necessary resources and equipment to conduct the additional trainings, with the goal of certifying an additional 200 teachers across Cayman in First Aid. CIRC will evaluate the training conducted by the newly certified First Aid Instructors to ensure the quality of the training is consistent with the standards of the Red Cross.

"Project RISE represents a significant step forward in our mission to increase resilience in the Cayman Islands community," says Jondo Obi, Cayman Islands Red Cross Director. "We are proud to be part of this important initiative that will equip our educators and students with the tools and skills they need to adapt to extreme and recurrent natural events. We look forward to working with our partners to make this project a success."

RESEMBID is a 47-project progamme funded by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France - the development cooperation agency of the Government of France and supports sustainable human development efforts in 12 Caribbean Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) - Aruba, Anguilla, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Montserrat, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Saint Barthélemy, Sint Maarten and Turks and Caicos.

For more information or to support the Rise project please contact Edu@RedCross.org.ky