Thursday, October 11, 2018

POSTPONED..........Wednesday, October 17, 2018 3PM. EMI e-Forum 'Diversity and Inclusion'

POSTPONED   10/11/2018 9:00AM

Postponed due to recovery efforts in Florida from Hurricane Michael, and continued recovery from Hurricane\Storm Florence.


Mark your calendar for Wednesday, October 17, 2018 at 3:00PM to listen & participate in the upcoming FEMA EMI e-Forum on ‘Diversity and Inclusion’.

Date:                Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Time:              3:00PM-4:00PM
Moderator(s):
                        Dr. Hakim B. Allah, MPA, D.M.. 
Chief, Integrated Emergency Management Branch 
FEMA Emergency Management Institute
                Doug Kuhn. 
 DHS\FEMA EMI.  Training Program Manager
Panelist:
                        Charles D. Sharp  
CEO.  Black Emergency Managers Association International
Chauncia Willis 
Emergency Coordinator at City of Tampa.
IAEM Region 4 President.
Curtis Brown
                              Chief Deputy State Coordinator, 
Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM)


e-Forum    Call-in and Login Information
EMI e-Forums are 1-hour, moderated, webinar discussion forums that provide an opportunity for EMI and the emergency management community to discuss matters of interest on national preparedness training.
EMI e-Forums facilitate a discussion of whole community-presented best practices.  The panel members are whole community, with topics relevant to whole community.  These exchangesof ideas are free of charge and available to anyone who wishes to participate.
               Date:                 Topic:  
               10/17           Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management
               10/24           The Advanced Professional Series (APS) and the States
               10/31           Red Cross Emergency Management Programs
Login link:
EMI e-Forums (https://fema.connectsolutions.com/emieforums)
Our Adobe Connect EMI e-Forums (http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect/apps/adobeconnectmobile.html) are accessible for those on the go.
Conference call-in:  
800-320-4330, PIN 107622








Black Emergency Managers Association 
          International
1231  Good Hope Road  S.E.
Washington, D.C.  20020
Office:   202-618-9097 
bEMA International 
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Change without Sacrifice is an Illusion.  Lisa Ellis



After-Actions: Migrant Workers Called 911 During Hurricane Florence. But No One Came To Their Rescue.





These Migrant Workers Called 911 During Hurricane Florence. But No One Came To Their Rescue.
The owner of the farm they worked on reportedly told county officials the workers "had everything they needed."

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Reporting From
Kinston, North Carolina
Posted on October 1, 2018, at 9:35 p.m. ET
Provided to BuzzFeed News

Farmworkers in Kinston, North Carolina, woke up to find their camp flooded on Sept. 15, 2018.
KINSTON, North Carolina — Hours after Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina last month, battering the state with heavy rains and flooding, a group of migrant farmworkers woke up to find themselves in waist-deep water.

Isolated in a migrant labor camp in rural Jones County, far from the view of paved roads, the workers called 911 and told emergency officials they needed to be rescued. Then they waited for hours, watching as their mattresses, refrigerators, and other belongings floated by in the rising floodwaters.

But unbeknownst to the workers at the time, a county emergency management team had canceled an effort to extract them, after the owner of the farm where the men were working called county officials to say the laborers at the camp were “fine.”

“We were there in the rain and didn’t know what to do,” a worker who was among those stranded at the camp, and who asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions, told BuzzFeed News.

“The water started coming in, but we hoped that it would keep flowing and go down,” he said. “Once it got higher than a meter, we had to get out.”

Located deep in eastern North Carolina's farming country, Jones County was among the areas hardest hit by Florence. Bracing for the hurricane's impact, the county had declared a state of emergency on Sept. 11, four days before Florence made landfall, and ordered mandatory evacuations for its roughly 10,000 residents.

Men at the camp were told a hurricane was approaching, the worker told BuzzFeed News, but many of them — including himself — had never experienced one before. He said he was not aware of any evacuation order.

Eric Merritt, Jones County’s emergency management director, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the county received the workers' 911 calls on the morning of Sept. 15, and said that first responders, including a swift-water rescue team, were initially dispatched to the camp in response.

The rescue crews had trouble reaching the location because of a road that had been blocked off by rising water, Merritt said. In the meantime, he said, the owner of the farm where the workers were located contacted the county to say that the group of roughly 35 to 40 men were fine.

“We contacted a swift-water team, and by that time the farm owner stated he made contact with [the workers] and they were fine, that they were just in an isolated area,” Merritt said. “That they had everything they needed as far as food and water.”
It was not clear why the farm owner, Randy Riggs, of Riggs Brothers Farm, called off the county's rescue efforts, or why workers at the camp stayed behind four days after the mandatory evacuation had been issued. Riggs did not respond to multiple messages from BuzzFeed News.

Asked why an emergency rescue would be called off on the word of the property owner, despite firsthand requests from the stranded workers, Merritt said he was not sure.
“He’s the actual owner and representative of the property,” Merritt said. “In that situation we’ll use the information from the most reliable case.”

Pressed on whether those asking to be rescued should be considered the most reliable source, Merritt conceded, “I guess in this case, yes."

The farmworkers weren't the only ones who tried to arrange rescues at the camp. As they waited for help to arrive, workers had reached out to advocates who work with the migrant community in eastern North Carolina, and asked them to relay the situation at the camp to officials.

Two migrant worker advocates told BuzzFeed News they were contacted by people at the camp on the morning of Sept. 15, and began to reach out to emergency services and other agencies, including the North Carolina Growers Association and the US Department of Labor, in the hopes of finding someone who could intervene to rescue the workers from the floods.

Melissa Bailey, an outreach director for the Kinston Community Health Center, which provides medical services to migrant workers in the region, told BuzzFeed News she received a call from one of the farmworkers sometime after 7 a.m. that morning. She said she then made multiple calls to 911 between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., telling officials the workers at Riggs Brothers Farm needed to be rescued.

Caitlin Ryland, supervising attorney at Legal Aid of North Carolina, said her organization was also contacted about the situation at the flooded camp and asked to help reach county officials who could get rescue teams to the workers.

With emergency services in Jones County apparently unresponsive to the situation, Ryland said, she contacted the Labor Department to see if federal authorities might be able to intervene.

In the end, it was an employee with the North Carolina Growers Association — a trade group that contracts with farms to provide migrant labor to North Carolina farms — who eventually picked up the workers from the site late Saturday afternoon, and took them to a shelter set up at a community college in a neighboring county.

Both the worker BuzzFeed News spoke to and the NCGA said that the workers appeared to be unharmed at the time of the rescue.

Composed of about 700 farm owners in the state — including Riggs Brothers Farms — the NCGA coordinates the hiring of more than 9,000 seasonal migrant workers in the state annually, and is the biggest labor contractor in the country for the H-2A temporary agricultural visa program, according to the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration.

Before the hurricane hit, NCGA Deputy Director Lee Wicker said, the association had reached out to farm owners to remind them to take steps to protect their employees. “Our message to our growers was they needed to take the necessary steps to take care of these workers like they’re your own family,” he said.

Upon hearing about the stranded workers in Jones County, Wicker said, the group “immediately dispatched our field reps” to pick up the men.

“I think the grower should have done better than he did, but thankfully we were able to get them out of there,” Wicker told BuzzFeed News. “We’re really sorry it happened how it happened, and we wish the grower would have taken additional steps.”

The incident underscores the perilous position that many migrant workers across North Carolina found themselves in as Florence battered the state last month. Despite playing a vital role in the state's large agricultural sector, migrant workers have been largely ignored in the aftermath of the disaster.

Many of the workers BuzzFeed News spoke to last month said they have now found themselves out of work and running low on money. As seasonal workers, they are sometimes dismissed as only temporary guests, not residents of the communities where they can spend up to 10 months a year. Relying on the daily work provided by a temporary visa, many are also hesitant to ask for assistance, out of fear that doing so could affect their employment or immigration status.

Despite being encouraged to evacuate if they were in danger, Ryland said, many laborers feared they could be retaliated against if they left on their own, without the direction or help of a farm owner or labor contractor. As a result, many failed to evacuate before the storm hit, leaving themselves vulnerable to the rising floodwaters and other weather hazards as Florence unleashed torrents of rain and wind on the state.

“A lot of migrant workers, their lives are very dependent to their employer,” she said, including services like transportation to church, stores, or medical attention. “Most of them have no independent means of transportation and that can be very scary.”

  • BuzzFeed, Inc.





Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Iraqis invited to apply online for ministerial posts. October 8, 2018


Commend Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Adbul Mahdi

Changing the Paradigm.  A 21st Century Giant Step Forward in Inclusion and Diversity.

Youth, Next Generation Leaders play an important role.

BEMA International


In a statement on his personal Facebook account, Mr Abdul Mahdi invited "those with expertise, specialisation and practical experience" to come forward.
 
Adel Abbul Mahdi has until 1 November to form a new government
Iraq's Prime Minister-designate Adel Abdul Mahdi has launched a website to allow Iraqis to apply for ministerial positions in his new cabinet.

They have until Thursday to submit a CV and evidence they meet his conditions.

Mr Abdul Mahdi was asked to form a new government last week, ending months of deadlock after inconclusive elections.

The independent Shia Islamist politician - who has a PhD in economics and has served as vice-president, oil minister and finance minister - was nominated by the two Shia-led blocs that won the most seats in parliament in May.

He will have to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq following the four-year battle against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), which left tens of thousands of homes and business destroyed and displaced more than three million people.


Mr Abdul Mahdi has until 1 November to form a government.

In the Facebook post, the prime minister-designate said he had decided to open up the ministerial recruitment process following a "number of requests for direct personal meetings either to offer congratulations, present programmes and ideas or to apply for ministerial posts".

The website Iraqcabinet2018.com says men and women who "meet all the conditions stipulated in the constitution and enforced laws" have until 16:00 (13:00 GMT) on Thursday to submit applications.
 
Outgong PM Haider al-Abadi struggled to bring independent technocrats into his cabinet
Hopefuls must provide their personal details, state whether they belong to any political party, and then say which ministry they would like to lead.

They are also required to describe the most important projects they have overseen, outline their thoughts on what makes a successful leader, and then detail the practical solutions they would propose to tackle the problems their chosen ministry is facing.

Previous Iraqi governments have been plagued by corruption, mismanagement, politicisation and sectarianism.

Outgoing Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi sought to replace ministers who were political appointees with unaffiliated technocrats, but faced stiff resistance from parties in his ruling coalition.

Parliament's failure to approve a non-political cabinet helped trigger protests in 2016 and prompted Mr Abdul Mahdi to step down as oil minister, a decision he said was aimed at "confronting an atmosphere of anxiety of chaos".



CARICOM, U.S. Gov't Plan High Level Meeting on Disaster Management. October 2018

Could CARICOM (CDEMA) provide initial response and assessment to Puerto Rico and USVI when disasters strike before additional resources and assistance from mainland U.S. arrives?

BEMA International


CARICOM, US gov’t plan high-level meeting on disaster management

Colin Granderson
CARICOM and the United States government have agreed to hold a high level meeting to discuss solely, matters of disaster management and disaster recovery due to increased intensity of hurricanes and storms as a consequence of climate change, according to Assistant Secretary General Colin Granderson.
In an interview with the CARICOM’s Secretariat communications department website, today@caricom.org, Granderson said the high level meeting was one of the outcomes of meetings held between CARICOM regional heads of government, heads of states and foreign affairs ministers on the fringes of the just-concluded United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), held in New York, USA.
Granderson said the meeting will look at some of the support that can be provided for recovery whether it is technical or it is assisting with experts in disaster management and recovery, and financial and material assistance as has been provided in the past by US and international development partners.

At the meetings, he explained, they also discussed the need to put in place a regional insurance facility which would facilitate the ordinary man to rebuild from disasters. That and strengthening the coordination modalities with the US, in terms of sharing their expertise in meteorology, such as warnings of hurricanes and approaching storms, will be further discussed when the representatives of the US and CARICOM meet.

Asked about tangible outcomes of the meetings, Granderson noted that tangible outcomes of meetings on the sidelines of the UNGA with the international community are not always immediate.
However, they are “very important” platforms when it comes to international relations, he said, as there is always the possibility of engagement with third states with which CARICOM does not normally meet or have the opportunity to meet.

CARICOM representatives, he said, also had meetings with the representatives of the US, the United Kingdom and Japan at the request of those countries. They also met with the group of Nordic countries.

“These meetings were important for us to put forward our concerns and to get support for some of our interests,” Granderson said.

At the UNGA, he said, the most important thing was to make sure that all the Member States were on the same page.

Blacklisting
Following the meeting of the Prime Ministers regarding the CARICOM Single Market and Economy in Barbados in September, he said, a decision was taken to use the General Assembly to highlight the issue of the blacklisting of financial services in the region.

In their presentations, he said CARICOM Member States “highlighted and called on the UN to pay far more attention to the blacklisting of our financial services sector which has had quite a disastrous effect, not only on financial services, but on our economies.”

Member States are relying heavily on revenue coming from financial services, he said.

On the issue of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which CARICOM was able to place as a priority on the UN agenda in 2011, he said, “it means that far more attention is now being placed on NCDs, far more resources are being made available and at this General Assembly there was a Third High Level meeting on NCDs.” “Resources are required to deal more effectively with the fight against NCDs. We have to strengthen our policy responses. By placing it on the international agenda, we are able to sensitize not only the international community but a number of our international development partners,” Granderson added.

CARICOM also organized a side event at which a number of development partners were present. Also present were the Director General of the World Health Organization, President the UNGA, and Secretary General of the Commonwealth.

Presentations were made by the Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, who holds the health portfolio in the CARICOM prime ministerial quasi-Cabinet; Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness and Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley. The event commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Port-of-Spain Declaration, which is the policy document guiding individual Member States in the fight against NCDs.

During the UNGA, Granderson said, they were also able to meet with representatives of other small island states and their groupings, like the Pacific Islands Forum.

“We also had a meeting with representatives of the OAS (Organisation of American States), informal meeting with SICA (Central American Integration Systems), and informal meetings with the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Secretariat,” he said.

The Power of the Diaspora. THE PARADIGM SHIFT. Cameroon Launches Emergency Fund for Victims of Separatist Conflict. June 2018

https://reliefweb.int/report/cameroon/cameroon-launches-emergency-fund-victims-separatist-conflict

"All Cameroonians have been called upon to contribute to the fund."

June 21, 2018   1:56PM

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

YAOUNDE — Cameroon has launched a multi-million dollar emergency humanitarian assistance plan for hundreds of thousands of its citizens who the government says live in precarious and life-threatening conditions in Cameroon and Nigeria due to the ongoing conflict with armed separatists of Cameroon’s Anglophone regions seeking to break away from the predominantly French-speaking country.  All Cameroonians have been called upon to contribute to the fund.

Cameroon Prime Minister Philemon Yang says the $23 million fund was ordered by President Paul Biya after more than a hundred Cameroonians, 84 soldiers and police have been killed, and hundreds of thousands of the country’s citizens now live in precarious and life-threatening conditions.

Yang says the fighting has internally displaced 74,000 people who are facing famine along with disastrous health conditions, and that 21,000 others have fled to Nigeria and should be brought back home.

"Our emergency humanitarian assistance plan aims at providing emergency humanitarian assistance to affected people; ensuring the socio-economic reintegration of the affected populations; reconstructing destroyed infrastructure, housing, food and basic needs, health care, education.  This action will include assistance and visits to show compassion to Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria," Yang said.

The prime minister said people living outside of Cameroon instigate armed youths under the influence of drugs to kill, kidnap and rape, adding that many teenagers have been recruited as child soldiers.  He said famine was looming in English-speaking areas since most farms and cattle ranches had been abandoned, and most businesses closed.

Yang said he was counting on government resources and contributions from Cameroonians and the international community to fund the emergency humanitarian assistance plan.

Reactions have been varied.  Many people say it is a good initiative to bring back thousands who have fled and reconstruct their destroyed towns and villages.

But Father Appolinarius Nkeng of the Catholic Church, who has been providing food aid to displaced populations and is calling for an end to the violence, says the government should first of all call for a cease-fire and initiate dialogue with the armed separatists.

"The option and the way out is proper and organized dialogue.  But I think it cannot be done in the manner politicians are talking about. You cannot have unity and peace without justice."

Schools have been closed in the English-speaking northwest and southwest areas of Cameroon since November 2016 when lawyers and teachers called for a strike to stop what they see as an overuse of the French language.

Separatists took over, calling for the independence of the English-speaking from the French speaking regions.  Cameroon’s government reacted with a crackdown and several dozen leaders of the strike were arrested.

Last week, human rights group Amnesty International criticized Cameroon’s government for using what it said was unnecessary and excessive force that frequently placed civilians in the web of violence and desperate conditions.



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