The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) will be staging Part II of a one-day Safer Building Workshop on Thursday, September 27, 2007. The aim of this Workshop is to equip informal builders and small building contractors with the required knowledge to help them build stronger and safer buildings and to attempt to institutionalize the principal techniques on which safer building is founded.

The Workshop will be held at the Golf View Hotel, 5½ Caledonia Road, Mandeville, from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) and First Caribbean International Bank (FCIB), under their Safer Building Sensitization and Hazard Awareness Programme, are supporters of the Safer Building Workshops in Jamaica. CDERA is partnering with FCIB in exposing two selected local zones in Jamaica and Dominica to mitigation measures to be taken to safeguard against unsafe building practices.

The following topics and more will be examined in the Workshop:

1. The bases of failures that occur in Jamaican housing due to the forces, the concepts of load path, and shear (as opposed to pull-out) connectors.
2. Details of the connections that fail, and why and how they fail.
3. The standards that are used for connections.
4. How to retrofit existing buildings that have less than desirable standards.
5. The various standards (non-standard) ways of strengthening connections and buildings.

On completion of the course, participants will evaluate the curriculum with a view to improving and adapting its contents to better suit the Jamaican experience in safer building practices.

Part I of the Safer Building Workshop was held on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at the Shirley Retreat Hotel and involved:
 

• An overview of hazards and the potential risks associated with these hazards.
• A discussion of the impact of damage to buildings experienced in the Jamaican scenario.
• An introduction to the basics of good building practices with a view to upgrading existing buildings.
• An introduction and guide to building safer new construction with a view to discussing the changes from “normal” methods and details needed to mitigate future damage.
• A familiarization with the Safer Building Curriculum and Code of Practice with an introduction to building codes relevant to the work they do.

Contact: Kerry-Ann Morris, Information Officer, kmorris ---@--- odpem.org.jm