A much-needed conference for the times.
On Saturday, April 19, 2025 over a hundred Chicagoans gathered at Malcolm X College on Chicago’s westside for a conference on disaster preparedness and trauma, sponsored by the African American Traumatology and Emergency Preparedness Society. Brother Olumenji, an expert on disaster preparedness and trauma and a member of the African American Traumatology and Emergency Preparedness Society, assisted in the planning and administration of the conference.
Conference attendees were welcomed by Brother Olumenji, Dr. Damon T. Arnold, and Sister Wallidah Tureaud.
The purpose and goals of the conference were to educate and familiarize the African American community on issues of trauma and disaster preparedness. The importance of our communities becoming self-reliant and self-sufficient cannot be overstated. If and when a disaster occurs in our community, we must be amply prepared to deal with it as well as with the ensuing trauma. The Traumatology and Emergency Preparedness Society designed the conference to advance community discussions and dialogue on the issues of emergency preparedness – what it is, how it works, what is the process and how you execute that process. What are the essentials? They wanted to advocate for the establishment of community capacity, that is, building capacity within our communities through networking, education, organization and the establishment of a collective expertise.”
To those ends the organizers established 12 conference activities with some 20 odd presenters who were primarily African American social workers, psychologists, emergency management or disaster specialists and clergy, to come together and sit on those panels.
The conference was from 9 am until 5 pm, and most of the participants stayed for the entire event. They listened. They asked questions. They took notes. They had pens and paper, which we supplied. Brother Olumenji and the African American Traumatology and Emergency Preparedness Society wish to thank WVON, all the radio shows, Dr. Terry Mason, Dr. Malik Shabazz, Brother Robert McKay, and a number of radio commentators, including Sister Sasha Daltonn of Omni-Channel and Brother Salim Muwakkil, of the Salim Muwakkil Radio Show on WVON-AM, and a special thanks to Sister Yvette Moyo for her support. All these people recognized the importance of having some type of preparedness, and also the idea that we must deal with trauma.
