The Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs (MPEEA) will be conducting a geotagging exercise during April, to identify vulnerable people who will need to be evacuated during an emergency or disaster.
This exercise forms part of the development and implementation of a Geospatial Mapping Software to plot the residences of the ministry’s clients and allow for the development of disaster management plans.
People will be contacted by trained field researchers via telephone to set a date and time for a home visit, according to a media statement issued on Thursday by Barbados Government Information Service.
These researchers will carry identification cards from the University of the West Indies and will speak with the residents on the outside of the home before taking a photograph of the house to facilitate the geotagging of their physical location.
The statement said that at no time will field researchers be entering homes. Anyone seeking further information about this process should call the Ministry’s helpline at 536-4673 or 536- HOPE. (BGIS)