BY MIKE TUA
THE U.S. Navy Pacific Partnership 2022, Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief team is currently working with the Solomon Islands professionals to help improve the emergency disaster response, planning, management, preparedness, resiliency, and capacity in the country.
U.S. Navy Pacific Partnership Planner, Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief Planner, Lt. Andrew Morrissey told local journalists that they are currently working in partnership with professionals from the National Disaster Council office, Royal Solomon Islands Police Force, and National Referral Hospital to improve disaster response program, planning, capacity, enhance partnerships and increase cooperation for preparedness during times of disaster emergencies.
“We will be hosting a series of workshops and fieldwork exercises as if it was a disaster with officials from the National Disaster Council office, Royal Solomon Islands Police Force, and National Referral Hospital and they will also go through triage emergency management,” Lt. Andrew Morrissey said.
On a similar note, the Pacific Partnership 2022 mission commander, Capt. Hank Kim said they have professionals to talk about disaster relief response and humanitarian assistance.
“As you know, with the global environmental conditions changing – humanitarian assistance and disaster relief is a large topic.
“My understanding is the Solomon Islands are vulnerable to climate change impacts that we have right now.
“Our ship motto is ‘to prepare in peace for times of crisis’ so when we are in calm conditions right now we must prepare in calm for times of future crisis.
“For now, we want to talk with different organizations in the government and civil organizations as much as possible to prepare for a potential disaster that may occur so that when the disaster occurs, we have calm communications or command control in place.
“I would say most importantly, we have the trusts and relationships built in place so that we can respond very quickly and efficiently,” Capt. Hank Kim said.
The Pacific Partnership is the largest annual multilateral disaster response preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific region.
