ST. GEORGE’S Grenada: Public information officers of national disaster offices ended two days of training in emergency communications in Grenada at the weekend. The course, which was hosted by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), was a huge success, said CDERA Information Manager, Terry Ally. "This was the first workshop of its kind. We had Information Officers from national disaster offices of 11 CDERA member states in the Caribbean and Central America. Our particular focus was on managing information during an emergency. This was selected because the experiences of 2004-2005 showed a need for strengthening this aspect of the operation," Mr Ally said after the workshop. Mr. Ally said that a manual currently being implements will contain step-by-step instructions for developing a communication plan for managing information during a crisis and will be available later this year through national disaster offices. This manual would be applicable to information officers in all relevant departments and agencies, such as health, tourism, public works, water, energy, and telecommunications, which have to deal with emergencies. Participants have lauded the effort and said the two days represented a steep learning curve for them - especially the exercises on dealing with a hostile media. The next training course, based on expectation and feedback from participants is expected to focus on a number of hands-on approaches including how to design a multi-channel communication campaign and how to measure and evaluate its impact. The major output of the workshop, which was held in collaboration with the Nation Disaster Management Agency (NaDMA) here and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), was the publication of a Framework Crisis Communication Plan. The topics covered during the training course were the role of the public information officer, stakeholder analysis, the use of Information and Communications Technologies in communication, the use of the website as an emergency information tool, and development of the communication plan. They also studied and critiqued the communication response plan to 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. Participants attended from Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Kitts/Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Reprinted from Caribbean Net News caribbeannetnews.com