CIFAL Victoria, First Nations co-create emergency planning – UVic News

February 20, 2025

CIFAL Victoria is part of a global network but it’s through a local network—of First Nations, academics and emergency preparedness experts—that’s it’s aiming its latest efforts at producing impactful solutions that transcend boundaries.

One of just two United Nations-accredited training and research centres in Canada, CIFAL Victoria is working with the other, CIFAL York (Ontario), and collaborating with Huu-ay-aht and T’Sou-ke First Nations plus First Nations Emergency Services Society to co-create disaster and emergency management training for First Nations.

The project is in its early stages but the plan is to build a customized curriculum that incorporates valuable Indigenous science and historic knowledge, then implement the training modules first through a pilot project, says Crystal Tremblay, director of CIFAL Victoria as well as an associate professor with the University of Victoria, which hosts the centre. In the long term, the goal is to have Indigenous leaders deliver the training both to their own communities and, further adapted with local knowledge, other First Nations communities such as those in the B.C. Interior.

This training program, the brainchild of CIFAL York director Ali Asgary, will enhance community resiliency by increasing the capacity of communities to identify risks, and prepare for, respond to and mitigate against the destructive impacts of climate change. Participants will learn about risk mapping; emergency preparedness, contingency and evacuation planning; infrastructure considerations; disaster response; and post-disaster recovery.

Read More: https://www.uvic.ca/news/topics/2025+cifal-victoria-and-first-nations-emergency-planning+news