The IRDR Communications Officer, Charina Cabrido, is returning to her home country after 1,5 years of service at the IRDR International Programme Office (IPO) in Beijing, China. After serving in several communications functions at the Asian Development Bank, “Chin”, as she is known to colleagues and friends, came to IRDR and contributed significantly to developing the communications hub function of the IPO – often under difficult conditions. She helped to increase the regular presentation of IRDR News, connected the IRDR Programme with social media worldwide, and exponentially expanded the contact database.

Together with IRDR Junior Science Officer Kerry-Ann Morris, she helped prepare the display of the latest IRDR outputs at the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015. Locally, she liaised with the publishing industry in the production of IRDR publications and launched a new format for the quarterly IRDR newsletters, which now reach some 5000 readers worldwide. The latest Newsletter released covered the presence of IRDR at the world conference in Sendai.