The official motto of the Boy Scouts of America is the words, “Be prepared.” The simple, yet direct message is also indicative of efforts from the City of Newark to ensure that its own citizens in the East Bay become and remain prepared for whatever challenges and calamities life may present.
Founded in March 2023, the City of Newark’s Emergency Preparedness Training Program has centered itself around three core principles: being prepared to help one’s local community, being prepared to help one’s neighbors and being prepared to help the community on a wide scale.
“Emergency preparedness is always essential. And one of the things that we as a city saw, especially during the pandemic, was that not all everyday people and businesses were equipped to respond to what was going on,” says City of Newark Emergency Service Coordinator Richard Martinez. “What we’ve seen since the implementation of this program is a resurgence of interest from the public on how to better prepare for natural disasters as well as just everyday emergencies.”
According to Martinez, an incident in which a Fremont resident underwent a medical emergency and ultimately passed away due to inadequate aid from bystanders attempting to help in 2022 was just one of many reminders of the dire consequences that can arise from a lack of emergency preparedness.
“When we think of emergencies we may tend to think of fires or earthquakes, but even just learning skills such as hands-only CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] when a friend or neighbor undergoes a heart attack can make all the difference,” adds Martinez.
Those who participate in any number of the program’s seminars and workshops can learn essential and potentially life-saving skills such as drawing up evacuation routes for one’s home/business, establishing rally points, assembling disaster kits with essential items and administering immediate medical aid—such as the aforementioned CPR—until paramedics arrive.
For Naz Jaladin of the City of Newark’s Community Development Department, the number of residents educated by the program rising from 30—at the time of its inception—to now over 300 is a hallmark of progress that certainly will not dissipate.
“Through the use of city-wide announcements and partnerships with some of our local businesses, we’ve been able to increase awareness of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training and we hope to expand,” says Jaladin.
“Emergency preparedness doesn’t just start with the community; it starts on an individual level,” concludes Martinez. “With this program and our CERT training, we hope to empower everyone in our community to have the power to do something when disaster strikes.”
In addition to various events within Newark’s City Council, the Newark Emergency Preparedness Program has a full schedule of CERT-related classes coming up in Fall 2024.
For a complete schedule of all upcoming and cost-free CERT classes and links to additional resources, visit www.newark.org.
