In an effort to increase student awareness and involvement in disaster response both on campus and elsewhere, the American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles and the American Red Cross at UCLA will be hosting an information and recruitment fair in Bruin Plaza today.
The event, which is also sponsored by the Community Emergency Response Team, will focus on informing students about the ways in which they can contribute to disaster response efforts in the event of such a tragedy.
“If a building catches fire or an earthquake makes a building unsafe, there is no (currently-planned) sheltering for students off campus,” said Michael Stajura, a doctoral student in the UCLA department of community health sciences.
“What I’m interested in is the ability of a community to handle its own business,” he said, explaining that the sheer size of the UCLA community makes planning for a disaster in this area complicated.
Stajura said that one of the best ways to prepare the campus for a disaster situation is to train as many students as possible in emergency reaction techniques.
The organizations involved in today’s event will distribute first aid kits and other tools students might find useful in the event of an emergency.
Another primary focus of the event will be to push organizations around Westwood to prepare for the possibility of housing those harmed or displaced in the event of an emergency of large magnitude.
“We are prepared to a certain extent (for a disaster), but we need to increase our capacity by contacting churches, schools (and) other large facilities that have sheltering capabilities,” said Jerry Washington, district coordinator for the American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles. “Our intent is to increase our spacial capacity by eight to 10 thousand more individuals.”
Today’s event will include Red Cross demonstrations and will feature an emergency response vehicle on site.
“Every quarter we do disaster services and emergency response training, but we’ve never done anything in Bruin Plaza or done anything of this scale before,” said Stephanie Be, a third-year bioengineering student and president of American Red Cross at UCLA.
Be said the Red Cross club will host many events on campus, including the annual UCLA/USC Rivalry Blood Drive at the end of November and beginning of December.
Washington’s assessment of the importance of student involvement in disaster response was without scruple: “We encourage people to be prepared to take care of themselves in the event of a disaster or emergency because they can’t help us unless they are first able to take care of themselves.”