Hanover’s disaster preparedness coordinator to represent Jamaica in Japan
Published:Monday | September 15, 2025 | 12:05 AMBryan Miller/Gleaner Writer
Western Bureau:
Annissa Spence, the acting parish disaster coordinator at the Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC), has been nominated by the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development to represent Jamaica at an upcoming international training programme in Japan.
Spence will be one of 11 participants at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) training programme, which is slated to take place from September 29 to October 17. The other participants have been drawn from countries such as Chile, Cook Island, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Suriname.
Lucea Mayor Sheridan Samuels, who expressed delight at the selection of Spence to represent Jamaica, made the announcement during last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the HMC.
“We (the HMC) are very proud of this young lady, Ms Spence, as she has shown that she is very capable, efficient and dependable, and we know that she will do Jamaica proud,” Samuels told the meeting.
Samuels pointed out that the training course that Spence will be attending, which is being funded by the Government of Japan, will be dealing with disaster risk management and community development.
Samuels further noted that the main objectives of the training programme are to understand Japan’s experiences and lessons learned from disasters and disaster reduction; to learn about the efforts by the local government, research institutions and residents for disaster prevention, reconstruction of disaster-stricken areas, development of disaster resilient community, and collaboration with diverse actors for sustainable development; and to learn from each other through exchanges of opinions with related parties and increase awareness for solving issues.
“We are very confident that Miss Spence will represent us all very well, and make Jamaica proud,” Samuels told The Gleaner in a subsequent interview.
Like Samuels, Spence is delighted that she has been selected to represent Jamaica, and is looking forward to the experience, which she hopes will help her to become better equipped at doing her job.
“I am extremely excited, and I am looking forward to the opportunity to see how best I can better plan to develop the parish of Hanover, and Jamaica by extension” Spence told The Gleaner. “I am looking forward to when I return to actually share the knowledge with my fellow parish disaster coordinators, so that they can help to build their respective parishes in a more stable and resilient way.”