DHL Express is this week training workers at Panama’s international airport to cope withdisasters as part of its global ‘Go Help’ programme.
More than 60 participants from local airport facilities are attending the training by DHLrepresentatives at Tocumen Airport from September 9-13.
The event aims to strengthen the capacity of Panama international airport and prepare its stafffor any type of emergency caused by natural disasters. The course focuses on analysing thecapacities of the Panamanian Airports to cope with natural disasters. In particular, it will helpto define the logistic capabilities needed to deal more efficiently with large-scale arrival ofhumanitarian aid.
Panama is a logistics hub that can be reached by air, land and sea. It benefits from thefacilities available including the multimodal platform. It consists of the Panama Canal, theinter-oceanic railway, the ports on the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, the DHL hub of the Americas forair cargo and passengers, and the Colon Free Zone for the collection and distribution of goodsworldwide.
The GARD programme has already been implemented at nine airports in Indonesia, Nepal,Bangladesh, Lebanon, Turkey and El Salvador.
The GARD concept complements Deutsche Post’s disaster management programme, including the DHLDisaster Response Teams (DRT) which help organise the logistics at airports following a disasterand have been implemented at over 20 airports since the launch in 2005. Some 500 DHL employees inthe Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America have been trained as DRT volunteers, with teamsbased in Singapore, Dubai and Panama.
GARD and DRT are part of DP DHL’s Corporate Responsibility Programme “Living Responsibility” andwere developed in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
