Resilient Dominica Project

 


Environmental Resilience Program

The Daniel Langlois Foundation (FDL) has created a new umbrella program overseeing projects dedicated to environmental resilience under the name Resilient Earth Program.

Under this program, specific resilience projects for selected countries will have their own name, logotype and web presence. The first 3 letters of each project’s logotype will be the same – REZ for resilience – while the last two letters represent the international country code/abbreviation of the country where the projects will take place.

The first project under this program, Resilient Dominica, will take place in the country of Dominica and will be identified by the logotype REZDM.

The logos of the projects under this program are composed of symbols used in alchemy to represent the fundamental elements Air Earth  Fire  Water . These symbols are combined to create the logo of each project and are selected according to the main challenges affecting the country associated with each project.

The REZDM project’s logo is composed of the alchemical symbols representing Water Air Earth with the resulting combination of logo and logotype as follows:

 


Resilient Dominica Project – 

Premises of project

The tropical cyclone Maria, a category 5 hurricane with winds in excess of 150 mph (250 km/h), made landfall in the country of Dominica on September 18, 2017 with disastrous consequences. Most of the country was devastated, the storm having destroyed or severely damaged many critical public infrastructures as well as numerous personal homes. Within just a few hours, the local inhabitants went from living a normal life to becoming stranded in the remains of their own home, in most cases without a roof above their heads to protect them and their families from the elements, while experiencing the complete loss off essential services such as running water, electrical power and telecommunications. Due to the sheer expanse of the storm’s damages, the pre-existing normal living conditions of the inhabitants are not expected to be re-established for months or years to come.

Even though cataclysmic natural disasters will always happen and will bring with them some associated material destruction, especially so in the Caribbean region which is prone to strong tropical storms, today there are few technological reasons why large scale natural disasters should create such drastic and long lasting loss of basic necessities forcing the residents of these regions to emigrate or settle in dire and unhealthy living conditions for extended period of time.

Scope of project

The objective of the REZDM project is to provide support to the communities of Dominica in their current recovery efforts with a focus on establishing long term resilience to the devastating impacts of natural disasters like hurricane Maria. The goal of the project is to research, define, design and implement realistic and viable technological solutions and interventions that will improve the quality of life for the inhabitants following natural disasters while building in future resilience to ongoing and changing environmental challenges.

In order to be as effective as possible, the REZDM project will focus its initial efforts in the village of Soufriere, with possible expansion to the villages of Scotts Head and Galion, all located in the south of the island and one of the regions most severely affected by hurricane Maria.

A local in-situ REZDM team, based in Dominica, is part of the project’s prerequisite to ensure that the research and project interventions are evaluated on site and with full awareness of the reality of the environment in which the project is operating and the actions implemented.

The in-situ team is composed of one Project Manager who will work with local consultants and part time local employees hired according to the requirements of each project intervention. The project manager will answer directly to the Daniel Langlois Foundation, the organization spearheading the project and its main financing channel.

In order to ensure that the project will be able to achieve its goals, the REZDM team will need to analyze the constraints under which the project can operate and be effective in accomplishing its mission in Dominica, taking into consideration the local laws, power production monopoly (DOMLEC) and other local governmental and non-governmental entities or individuals that could collaborate or be proponents of the project.

Project funding

Fundraising efforts directly through the Daniel Langlois Foundation or through other means will take place to support the costs associated with the project.

The Daniel Langlois Foundation will also provide grants to some of the local residents or organizations that have been the most affected by the hurricane Maria. The grants will be used to facilitate access for the residents and organizations to self-sustainable technologies proposed through the REZDM project.

 

Coastal Plan Images

Please note that all of the Coastal Plan images are © 2018-2019 Fondation Daniel Langlois.