Similar to the rest of the world when the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the globe in March, the residents of Aruba were ordered to shelter in place at home, schools closed, most businesses were not allowed to open and tourism came to a standstill with the border closed.
This is why the Freewinds teamed up with the Aruba Fire Service in coordination with the Aruba Crisis Committee and DVG to fight back against Covid-19 with the purpose to assist the island to get back on its feet and back in business.
With sanitizing starting at the beginning of April using the product D7 the Volunteer Ministers of the Freewinds and the Aruba firefighters had joined forces to sanitize over 120 key locations covering 1.1 million square feet of spaces across Aruba in order to fight against the spread of Covid-19. These locations include schools, churches, centro di barrios, police stations, NGO facilities, government offices and more.
In addition to sanitizing, the Volunteer Ministers distributed over 90,000 Stay Well booklets across Aruba. These booklets provide the proper educational information in an easy to read format with plenty of pictures on how to stay safe, how to sanitize your home or office and what to do when you or a family member becomes ill.
Port Captain of the Freewinds, Ken Weber, stated, “The Freewinds has been part of the Aruba community for over 30 years. We had the tools necessary to assist in this fight in the form of Stay Well booklets and the D7 product. There was no way we were going to stand by on the sidelines and hope for things to get better. We decided to get involved early. The cooperation between the Ministry of Tourism, Public Health and Sports, the Aruba Fire Service and DVG was excellent. Even though we are all keeping our distance, we are all in this together.”
With the date for the opening of schools drawing closer the Department of Education became part of the team coordinating the sanitation of schools. Along with this the Stay Well booklets and videos were made available for educating the students.
After sanitizing Commandeur Pieter Boer School and providing the school with a supply of Stay Well booklets, Principal Ustel Cornet said, “This is very good information to have. We will be able to provide the right information from these booklets on what to do. We can use the videos for one of our first lessons. Thank you very much for what you do. God bless you”.
Now that the border is open and people arrive from other countries it is inevitable that the cases of Covid-19 will increase. That is why it is so important that all protocols are kept in to protect you personally as well as others in order to keep the number of cases to a minimum.
