A SINGLE STEP

Indeed, it begins with a single step. We started with one computer, one lecturer, one lesson at a time, one class and, most importantly, one vision: where there is a way, there is a will. Since September 2012, it has been a rough ride but we are still going strong, day by day.

One may wonder: what are you talking about? World Disaster Management Community College. I must say that I did know much about disaster management. I only saw and heard about it on the news. I did not know there is a lot in it. It only took three weeks for Mr. Landon Densely, a lecturer and a mentor in this college, to arrive and gave me an idea of what is disaster management. He bombarded us with lot of information, illustrated with some examples of his past experience in disasters as Emergency Manager. We really appreciate his presence. He has been of greate assistance to us. We can now talk the whole day about disaster management. In fact, we created our own family Emergency Operation Plans (EOP) as part of our academic course, and we are now busy with Kanana Secondary School EOP, which we hope to finish by end of January.

We have more than 20 computers working, all with internet access. We can check our e-mails, search on the internet and take FEMA online exams. The interesting part of online test is we can access our certificates on our e-mails and print them  if we like. With these, we can see our progress. I have seen excitement in all of the students after passing every test they take. Every course that we did is on the computers.

Every one we meet, Police, Disaster Management office, Fire chief, want to help in anyhow. We would gladly appreciate any help we can get for this college. We also appreciate everything everybody is doing to keep us going, from college management to every student. As Sir Isaac Newton said: “It is by standing on other people’s shoulders to see further”. We need each other.