Consuls General from Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica’s Trade and Investment Commissioner joined with over thirty (30) volunteers from GlobalMedic, Air Canada workers, Community group members from Grenada and Dominica at the Air Canada’s Brampton location to pack hurricane relief supplies as a precautionary measure for the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season.
GlobalMedic and Air Canada have been working together since 2016 to assist Caribbean countries with hurricane relief supplies.
Rahul Singh, Executive Director at GlobalMedic for twenty-one (21) years is excited about these early preparations for the 2019 hurricane season. GlobalMedic has performed relief operations in Grenada and Dominica in the past after the islands were hit by Hurricanes Ivan and Maria in 2004 and 2017 respectively.
“GlobalMedic could not have done this work without donors like Proctor and Gamble, our volunteers and our partner Air Canada. We will make available over 4000 kits to be shared among the islands. St Vincent and the Grenadines will be given 500 kits. Each kit will cost approximately US$120 and will be donated free of cost to the countries. This kit is essentially a hygiene kit that is ideally suitable for a family of five. It contains a water purification kit, toothpaste, soap and toothbrushes. From experience we know that we have to protect health and well-being of families if displaced by a disaster: We will also be working on preparing an Emergency Food and Disaster Kit as well,” said Singh.
GlobalMedic is responsible for getting the supplies through donations and sponsorship and Air Canada is involved in shipping the relief supplies to the islands to which they operate.
“Air Canada has made corporate social responsibility central to its business strategy because we know companies can do well by doing good. We pride ourselves in not only taking care of our customers and employees, but also helping the communities we serve. One way we can do this is to support preparedness measures such as this one and I am proud of my colleagues for volunteering to help GlobalMedic,” said Jeffery Edwards, General Manager, Cargo Network Control, Air Canada.
Consul General Fitzgerald Huggins joined the assembly line to assist with packing the supplies expressed his gratitude to Air Canada and GlobalMedic. He said, “tgovernment and people of St Vincent and the Grenadines and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMO)are extremely grateful for the hurricane kits. We hope we will never have the occasion to use them. But we are changing the dynamics of disaster response and our early preparedness will bring confidence to the general populace.”
GlobalMedic is the operational arm of the David Mc Antony Gibson Foundation (DMGF). We operate as a registered Canadian charity, and our mandate is to save lives by providing short-term, rapid response in the wake of disasters and crisis, both at home and abroad
The key word is rapid, as you might expect from an agency that was founded by paramedics. GlobalMedic is often the first team, and many times the only one, to get critical interventions to people in life-threatening situations following a disaster. This is what we are known for in the world of humanitarian disaster response.
GlobalMedic achieves this through our well-developed Emergency Programs and our internationally deployable Rapid Response Team (RRT).
Visit: www.globalMedic.ca
Air Canada has weekly direct flights to St Vincent and the Grenadines.
