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Arlington, Virginia, October
19, 2001 (CIDI) - On October 18, 2001, the Center for International Disaster Information
(CIDI) in coordination with the American Red Cross, co-hosted a briefing for embassy
personnel from Latin America and the Caribbean. The purpose of the briefing was to
provide embassy representatives from the region with guidance on how to avoid many of
the common problems and challenges of handling the American public’s offers of assistance
following a major disaster in their country.
Along with the Center’s Director, Suzanne H. Brooks, the briefing panel participants
included Yolanda Jacot, Embassy Liaison, American Red Cross; Lesley Schaffer, Manager of the
International Disaster Response Unit; Patricia Bittner, Disaster Preparedness Programs, Pan
American Health Organization; Tony Stitt, Disaster Response Unit, InterAction; Glenda Alvarez,
Vice President, Salvadoran-American Association of Virginia; and Michael Marks, Team Leader,
United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.
Presentations included information related to international disaster response by
non-governmental and international organizations, the United States government, the general
public and local communities responding to emergencies in their home countries.
The briefing’s special guest speaker was Ambassador Rene Leon Rodriguez of the Embassy of
El Salvador, who made an insightful presentation on the Embassy of El Salvador’s past donations
management experience. Ambassador Leon’s presentation was particularly valuable to the
attendees as it related to lessons learned from managing donations in response to Hurricane
Mitch in 1988 and how those lessons were implemented in the Embassy’s response to the
earthquakes that devastated his country in early 2001.
More than 20 embassy envoys attended the briefing, including representatives from Barbados,
Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada,
Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Venezuela, and the United Kingdom for the Cayman
Islands and Bermuda.
This embassy briefing was the first in a series of collaborative meetings to be initiated
by the CIDI to provide Washington-based embassies and consulates within the United States
with guidance in handling public response to international emergencies. In the Center's
experience, effective embassy communication with the American public is key to appropriate,
manageable and ultimately successful public response for international emergencies. The
Center has worked closely with most embassies affected by large-scale emergencies since the
program began in 1988 and in conjunction with the promotion of the American Red Cross
Embassy Emergency Response Guide in 1989.
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