The Third Caribbean Ministerial Forum on School Safety, which was postponed from last year because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, will be held in St. Maarten next month.
External relations officer at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Regional Office – The Americas and the Caribbean, Saskia Carusi, said the main focus of the June 28-30 event will be on reaffirming commitments from the ministries of education to work in towards the safe schools.
“And now with the covid pandemic, it’s even more relevant because we saw how this crisis affected the education sector really significantly. So that will be for sure one of the topics of conversation,” Carusi told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, which wrapped up on Friday May 27.
To date, 18 countries from the Caribbean, both from Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) member countries, CARICOM member states as well as Cuba, and the Dominican Republic have signed up the declaration as part of the Caribbean Safe Schools Initiative (CSSI).
CSSI was launched in April 2017 during the First Caribbean Ministerial Forum on School Safety and is the suggested framework to advance school safety in the Caribbean.
The initiative is the Caribbean’s contribution to the Worldwide Initiative on Safe Schools and is a partnership for advancing safe school implementation at the national level among Caribbean countries.
“And this is kind of the Caribbean commitment towards that global initiative. So, this is a specific initiative of the Caribbean,” Carusi said.
“So it takes into account very specific challenges, small island development states, the climate risk, how does it fit within the comprehensive disaster management strategy of CDEMA…”
Next month’s meeting follows up on the Regional Review on School Safety in the context of Systemic Risk: The Virtual Caribbean Safe School Initiative Pre-Ministerial Forum, held online in March 2021.
Carusi told CMC that the ministerial forum is part of efforts to strengthen continually the relation between the ministries of education and disaster management agencies in the Caribbean, as the region is especially vulnerable to multiple threats.
“We have climate risks, which are increasing; we have tsunamis, earthquakes, and also covid. Then there are also technological hazards and other safety issues that can happen. “So, the Safe School agenda hasn’t been as relevant as us today,” Carusi said.
The initiative includes a roadmap where education ministers will commit to and decide on concrete actions before each forum.
One of the achievements so far is that ministries for education have specific disaster risk reduction plans to start working.
Carusi said the forum does not capture issues relating to violence in and at school “because that has specific elements.
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