Congratulations to Dr. Rose-Ann Smith (Lecturer, Department of Geography and Geology) who has authored a children story book entitled, ‘The Day I Became a Hurricane’. The aim of this book is to educate children between grades one and five about the development of a hurricane and its impacts. It also introduces them to hurricane preparedness.
‘The Day I Became a Hurricane’ is about a wind that was very unhappy with who he was. He was mocked by his friends, including his stronger brother ‘Storm’, who named him ‘Depression’ because he was weak and always sad. He wanted to be as strong as his father who was named ‘Hurricane’. With the help of his father, he learned how to become as strong as a hurricane, but things did not go as he had imagined.
Dr. Smith shared that her motivation to pen her book arose from her involvement in conferences or panel discussions where participants spoke about Caribbean culture in managing disaster risk and how, in some ways, it hinges on risk perception, and limited education. “We have argued that we have a culture of responding (not preparing) and how difficult it is to change the mindset of adults. As a solution to this, I have always advocated for mainstreaming disaster risk management into schools’ curricula. I believe that in order for us to effectively manage risk, we must start by engaging our younger generation. However, when I research, I realise that there was not a lot of writing done or materials developed for that age group. I wanted to get that ball rolling,” said Dr. Smith.
Youngsters will now have another Caribbean generated resource to expose them to hurricane formation, development, and impact in a way that is creative and fun, but at the same time educational. She believes that as a Caribbean people we should continue on this trajectory of building foundational knowledge regarding disaster risk management given our risk profile. This was indeed a ground-breaking venture for Dr. Smith. She hopes to develop several other reading materials targeting children across the different age groups.
Published on 13 May, 2022
Our 7 faculties and 12 professional schools offer more than 200 programmes to some 18,000 graduate, undergraduate and continuing studies students.
The UWI, Mona ranks first in Jamaica among accredited tertiary-level programmes. In 2012, the University was again one of Jamaica’s Top 100 Employers.
