The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), through the Building Disaster Resilient Community (BDRC) project, has partnered with the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) at The UWI, Mona in an effort to promote disaster resilience in Jamaica.
  
The partnership with CARIMAC is to assist the BDRC by allowing final year students of the Communication Analysis and Planning II (CAP 2) course to do their class projects on the BDRC.  The students have begun implementing disaster resilience communication support campaigns in three of the twenty-nine communities identified by the BBRC. The communities selected namely: Gregory Park, St. Catherine, Swift River, Portland and New River in St Elizabeth, usually experience significant flooding during heavy rainfall. The campaigns are geared towards helping individuals with the communication aspect of their emergency response; promoting disaster resilience among students through their curriculum; and creating messages encouraging participation in BDRC training activities.

CAP 2 is designed to offer participants the opportunity to formulate a feasible development support communication project and to implement the project. Dr. Livingston White, CAP 2 coordinator stated, “At The UWI, we like to give our students opportunities to practise what they learn in the classroom and the partnership with ODPEM will do just that.”

The BDRC is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) with the goal of ensuring long-term hazard prevention by strengthening communities’ ability to respond proactively to natural and manmade disasters. The three-year BDRC project was launched in 2008 and is being implemented in 29 communities which were selected based on their susceptibility to certain natural disasters.  

The BDRC hopes to replicate these communication activities based on their successful implementation in the three pilot communities.