A severe economic reset is inevitable. But whether the hardship your community faces will be the result of economic failure or natural disaster, you must prepare and plan now.
Your own safety, along with the security and well-being of your family, neighborhood, and community, depend on your will to prepare.
Focusing on personal preparedness, fostering strong family bonds, building neighborhood cooperation, and strengthening the wider community are the ways we’ll not only weather the crisis, but emerge stronger.
Additional action steps for business owners, church leaders, NGO’s, law enforcement, and local officials are listed below.
But these Action Steps are the minimal activity every individual should undertake now to prepare for whatever crisis we face.
- Define Your Principles.
- Faith and Resilience: Develop mental, emotional, spiritual and physical resilience. Crisis management requires dispassionate analysis and problem solving under stressful conditions. Strengthen emotional and spiritual resilience by grounding in faith, prayer, and community support. Encouraging a hopeful outlook, even in adversity, helps maintain balance. Learn to manage your emotions no matter what is happening around you.
- Communication and Leadership: Be a visible leader, maintaining open communication with your employees, customers, neighbors, and other community leaders. Calm, proactive planning so everyone knows what to do and where to turn in a crisis keeps people engaged and productive when hard times come.
- Ethical Responsibility: Maintain ethical practices in all actions, even under pressure. Resolve to be a leader who will advocate for stability and peace whatever the crisis. A strong moral compass helps others feel safe and inspired, reinforcing community solidarity.
- Prepare Yourself
- In Trust Resources: Stroll through the various briefings, messages, trainings, and resources to familiarize yourself with the In Trust Network benefits available to you.
- In Trust Network Message Board: Learn how to use the In Trust Network websites various features including the Message Board so you can communicate in “Groups” with other members with whom you share an interest. You can learn more about the Message Board specifically at https://www.intrustnetwork.com/message_board_trainings
- Information: Stay informed with relevant information regarding weather patterns, economic trends, or signs of social unrest. Reliable information is key to making timely decisions.
- Flexibility: Be ready to change plans as situations evolve. Flexibility will allow you to adjust to changing circumstances and seize new opportunities for survival and resilience.
- Engage With Other In Trust Members in Your Community: Message other members in your local community group to learn when events or meetings are taking place in which you might wish to participate. If no meetings are currently planned, be the leader your community needs to start the process, or find someone who will help you do so.
- Expand the Circle: Mention the In Trust Network’s mission of helping local communities prepare for natural disasters or economic downturns to your friends, family, church leaders, and employers. Encourage them to be involved in preparing and planning.
- Acquire Skills: Learn essential skills such as first aid, basic home repair, gardening, and food preservation. Financial literacy is also crucial for managing resources during economic downturns.
- Create an Emergency Kit: Have a personal go-bag ready with essentials like water, non-perishable food, a flashlight, batteries, first aid supplies, and personal identification. Include cash in small denominations.
- Maintain Physical Health: Keep yourself in good health by staying active, eating nutritious food, and staying up to date with medical needs and vaccinations. Healthy individuals respond better to crises.
- Protect Your Family
- Faith and Hope: Provide emotional support and maintain family unity. Ground yourself and your family in your faith. Encourage regular prayer and remind everyone of the importance to remain hopeful and exercise strong moral values.
- Financial Stability: Ensure financial stability by diversifying income streams, cutting unnecessary expenses, and prioritizing essential needs.
- Funds: Maintain a family emergency fund of cash equal to at least two months income. Set up essential bill payments and know how to access your money if banking systems fail.
- Preparedness: Create a robust family emergency preparedness plan and stock up on essentials like batteries, flashlights, fuel, etc..
- Physical and Emotional Support: Prioritize the physical and emotional well-being of each family member during and after the emergency. Provide emotional support during stressful times, fostering a strong sense of unity and faith.
- Communications: Develop a family emergency communication plan. Establish a means of communication in the event cell systems cease to function. Designate meeting spots, establish communication methods (e.g., out-of-town contacts), and ensure everyone knows where to go if separated.
- Know Your Role: Regularly discuss emergency preparedness with family members to ensure everyone knows their roles.
- ID Reliable Sources: Identify in advance reliable sources of information and stay connected to the best of your ability.
- Stock Up: Make necessary preparations for at least four weeks of food for each person in your household, three to four months is better.
- Medicine and Unique Necessities: Stock up on medicines and other unique necessities each family member may require. Store items in a dry dark location, and check expiration dates regularly.
- Safe Water: Know how you’ll obtain and make water safe for drinking and cleaning.
- Electricity: Know what you’ll do to provide electricity in the event of a power outages. Consider back up generators or solar chargers.
- Structural Integrity: Fortify your home by securing doors and windows, and ensuring it is structurally sound against natural disasters like storms or earthquakes.
- Local Support: Contact at least three or four other friends in your neighborhood and devise a plan for supporting one another’s family and keeping your neighborhood safe.
- Prepare Your Neighborhood
- Build Relationship: Know your neighbors and foster a sense of community.
- Contact Directory: Create a neighborhood directory of addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.
- Shared Resources: Coordinate with neighbors and consider how you might share emergency resources like water purification, back-up power, or community gardens. Pooling resources can ease the burden on individuals.
- Neighborhood Security: Know how your neighborhood would protect itself in the event of social disorder.
- Neighborhood Communications: Set up a local communication system (such as walkie-talkies or group messaging apps) to stay informed about neighborhood safety, news, and resource availability in case phone lines or internet services fail.
- Logistics: Discuss where everyone would meet in the event of a natural disaster or neighborhood security breach.
- Care For the Vulnerable: Determine how neighbors will aid elderly, disabled, or vulnerable neighbors. Having a plan to support others strengthens the entire neighborhood during tough times.
- Be A Resource To Your Community
- Organize: Be involved with the In Trust Network’s effort to plan and prepare. Engage other faith groups, service clubs, or faith groups in joining preparation by hosting a webinar with In Trust Network leaders and individuals in your community.
- Planning: Once you’re part of a community group planning for the future, promote resilience projects like community food gardens or food co-ops, storage of essentials at central locations like churches or community centers, designating potential shelters for those impacted by natural disaster, and creating a local currency/barter system.
- Communicate with Authorities: Engage with local authorities and emergency services to understand their response plans and how the community fits into them. This ensures quick coordination during crises.
- Develop Social Cohesion: Strengthen bonds within the community by encouraging local groups to hold events that encourage trust, teamwork, and shared responsibilities. Faith-based gatherings can be particularly important to encourage hope and unity during difficult times.
- Community Security: Sadly, we have to assume that in the event of severe hardship, there will be some level of social disorder. Work with local law enforcement and other officials to understand how they’ll handle security concerns in the event of crisis.
- At the same time, work with churches, LEO’s, school professionals and other community leaders to devise ways that will reduce tension and promote stability and cooperation in the community.
