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IRIN Global | Girls fare worse in disasters | Global | Aid Policy | Conflict | Disaster... - 0 views

  • During disasters, girls fare worse than the rest of the population, according to a new report released on 11 October by child rights NGO Plan International. “Men, women, boys and girls experience disasters in different ways. Pre-existing inequalities and vulnerabilities will be exacerbated in disasters and will affect girls and women more,” said Plan International regional director Gezahegn Kebede at an event for the launch of the report.
  • “In emergencies, given their gender, age, and humanitarian status [girls] experience triple disadvantage,” said Kebede. However, education can be a powerful mitigating tool, and can significantly improve their livelihoods.
  • The report entitled The State of the World’s Girls 2013: In Double Jeopardy: Adolescent Girls and Disasters argues that a combination of political, economic, social and cultural attitudes can lead to discrimination of girls during disasters.
Teachers Without Borders

Disaster-resilient school communities urged - thenews.com.pk - 0 views

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    Considering the vulnerability of children and the role schools can play in case of any natural or human induced disaster, the speakers of a seminar have stressed for creating disaster-resilient school communities that are better trained and equipped for dealing with any such emergency situation.   They demanded the government to declare May 16 as National School Safety Day and define standard operating procedures (SOPs) for schools which could be followed in case of any disaster. They said that these SOPs should be mounted on school walls and children and teachers be trained to strictly follow them.  
Teachers Without Borders

UNICEF-supported programme prepares Georgian students for potential disasters - YouTube - 0 views

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    A UNICEF-supported Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) programme was officially incorporated into the national curriculum last month, providing learning materials for school children, along with educational games and child-friendly posters.
Teachers Without Borders

Safe Schools Campaign - 0 views

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    The All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), Ahmedabad, India, is a community-based action research and action advocacy organisation which has been working towards bridging the gap between policy, practice and research in disaster management since 1995. AIDMI's mission is to reduce the vulnerability of poor communities by increasing mitigation efforts, through learning and action, to ensure water, habitat, food, work and human security. The organisation operates locally but also maintains an active international presence.
Teachers Without Borders

Disaster and Emergency Preparedness: Guidance for Schools - 0 views

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    This handbook and its companion activity guide-the Disaster and Emergency Preparedness: Activity Guide for K to 6th Grade Teachers- were prepared as a resource for school administrators and teachers to serve as a basis for policy development. They also provide an important resource for classroom activities and awareness-raising among children and communities.
Teachers Without Borders

Global Voices Online » Chile: Praise for Earthquake Preparedness - 0 views

  • Quakes are commonplace in Chile; since 1906 and counting this most recent earthquake, Chile has experienced 28 earthquakes [es]—without counting the smaller in magnitude but still frequent seismic activity that is often felt around the country. The three biggest earthquakes that many Chileans can still remember left 30,000 dead in 1939, 3,000 in 1960, and 177 in 1985.
  • The Chilean government, society, and people should be praised for their readiness in dealing with such a catastrophic natural disaster…as of this writing, Chile has still not appealed for international help even though the death toll has topped 300.
  • I was impressed with the buildings since most of them where built under strict codes to remain standing during seismic movements. Chileans say that every decade there was a strong earthquake that left the city “la escoba” (like a broom) . That means, the earthquakes turned cities into disaster zones.
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  • In the midst of devastating news from around the world regarding other natural disasters, Chile’s preparedness stands as an example, showing that –despite the casualties and physical damage it has suffered—a much worse scenario was avoided thanks to infrastructure built to withstand earthquakes and a well-established government prepared to answer to disaster.
Teachers Without Borders

Kenya: Teacher shortage to be recognised a national disaster - 1 views

  • the Kenyan National Union of Teachers (KNUT), urged “the government to declare the shortage of teachers a national disaster,” reported the national newspaper Daily Nation.
  • “It is a serious disaster and parents and people of goodwill should join us in this mother of all strikes, he added. We cannot accept to have schools where 3.4 million children are receiving a half-baked education.”
  • Kenya has not increased its teacher stock since 1999 [...] Kenya has merely been replacing teachers lost due to attrition. As a result the country has 40,000 trained teachers roaming the streets.”
Teachers Without Borders

Disaster Awaits Cities in Earthquake Zones - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • t is not so much the city’s modern core, where two sleek Trump Towers and a huge airport terminal were built to withstand a major earthquake that is considered all but inevitable in the next few decades. Nor does Dr. Erdik agonize over Istanbul’s ancient monuments, whose yards-thick walls have largely withstood more than a dozen potent seismic blows over the past two millenniums.His biggest worry is that tens of thousands of buildings throughout the city, erected in a haphazard, uninspected rush as the population soared past 10 million from the 1 million it was just 50 years ago, are what some seismologists call “rubble in waiting.”
  • Istanbul is one of a host of quake-threatened cities in the developing world where populations have swelled far faster than the capacity to house them safely, setting them up for disaster of a scope that could, in some cases, surpass the devastation in Haiti from last month’s earthquake.
  • the planet’s growing, urbanizing population, projected to swell by two billion more people by midcentury and to require one billion dwellings, faced “an unrecognized weapon of mass destruction: houses.” Without vastly expanded efforts to change construction practices and educate people, from mayors to masons, on simple ways to bolster structures, he said, Haiti’s tragedy is almost certain to be surpassed sometime this century when a major quake hits Karachi, Pakistan, Katmandu, Nepal, Lima, Peru, or one of a long list of big poor cities facing inevitable major earthquakes.
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  • In Tehran, Iran’s capital, Dr. Bilham has calculated that one million people could die in a predicted quake similar in intensity to the one in Haiti, which the Haitian government estimates killed 230,000. (Some Iranian geologists have pressed their government for decades to move the capital because of the nest of surrounding geologic faults.)
  • Ali Agaoglu, a Turkish developer ranked 468th last year on the Forbes list of billionaires, described how in the 1970s, salty sea sand and scrap iron were routinely used in buildings made of reinforced concrete. “At that time, this was the best material,” he said, according to a translation of the interview. “Not just us, but all companies were doing the same thing. If an earthquake occurs in Istanbul, not even the army will be able to get in.”
  • Istanbul stands out among threatened cities in developing countries because it is trying to get ahead of the risk. A first step was an earthquake master plan drawn up for the city and the federal government by Dr. Erdik’s team and researchers at three other Turkish universities in 2006. Such a plan is a rarity outside of rich cities like Tokyo and Los Angeles.Carrying out its long list of recommendations has proved more challenging, given that the biggest source of political pressure in Istanbul, as with most crowded cities, is not an impending earthquake but traffic, crime, jobs and other real-time troubles.Nonetheless, with the urgency amplified by the lessons from Haiti’s devastation, Istanbul is doing what it can to gird for its own disaster.
  • But a push is also coming from the bottom, as nonprofit groups, recognizing the limits of centralized planning, train dozens of teams of volunteers in poor districts and outfit them with radios, crowbars and first-aid kits so they can dig into the wreckage when their neighborhoods are shaken.
  • Under a program financed with more than $800 million in loans from the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, and more in the pipeline from other international sources, Turkey is in the early stages of bolstering hundreds of the most vulnerable schools in Istanbul, along with important public buildings and more than 50 hospitals. With about half of the nearly 700 schools assessed as high priorities retrofitted or replaced so far, progress is too slow to suit many Turkish engineers and geologists tracking the threat. But in districts where the work has been done or is under way — those closest to the Marmara Sea and the fault — students, parents and teachers express a sense of relief tempered by the knowledge that renovations only cut the odds of calamity.
  • “I hope it’s enough,” said Serkan Erdogan, an English teacher at the Bakirkoy Cumhuriyet primary school close to the Marmara coast, where $315,000 was spent to add reinforced walls, jackets of fresh concrete and steel rebar around old columns and to make adjustments as simple as changing classroom doors to open outward, easing evacuations. “The improvements are great, but the building may still collapse,” he said. “We have to learn how to live with that risk. The children need to know what they should do.”In a fifth-grade classroom, the student training that goes with the structural repairs was evident as Nazan Sati, a social worker, asked the 11-year-olds what they would do if an earthquake struck right at that moment. At first a forest of hands shot toward the ceiling. Ms. Sati quickly told them to show, not tell. In a mad, giggling scramble, the students dove beneath their desks. But the threat for children, and their parents, also lies outside the school walls, in mile upon mile of neighborhoods filled with structures called gecekondu, meaning “landed overnight,” because they were constructed seemingly instantly as hundreds of thousands of migrants from rural regions flowed into the city seeking work in the past decade or two.
Teachers Without Borders

Manual on school safety: preparing schools for a safer tomorrow - Educational Materials... - 0 views

  • This document presents a comprehensive methodology for school safety considering school-specific hazards, such as earthquake, flood, flash flood, cyclone, landslide, and tsunami. It also focuses on fire and road hazards and considers climate change related issues. This manual is specific to Bangladesh and aims to guide teachers and students to develop a disaster management plan that includes mitigation, preparedness and response planning.
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    This document presents a comprehensive methodology for school safety considering school-specific hazards, such as earthquake, flood, flash flood, cyclone, landslide, and tsunami. It also focuses on fire and road hazards and considers climate change related issues. This manual is specific to Bangladesh and aims to guide teachers and students to develop a disaster management plan that includes mitigation, preparedness and response planning.
Teachers Without Borders

Students offer info about post-quake efforts in 22 languages - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun - 0 views

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    Twenty students at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies have produced a multi-lingual website about areas hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake. The site, called Tohoku10×26windows, gives information on the activities of 10 groups based in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures and offers translations into 22 languages, including English, German, Vietnamese and Polish. Pages in Czech, Burmese, Urdu and Arabic are in the pipeline, which will bring the total languages to the title's "26 windows." "We aim to transmit the news directly from the disaster areas to the world," said one student involved in the project.
Teachers Without Borders

HaitiAnalysis.com Haiti's Earthquake Victims in Great Peril - 0 views

  • According to a February study by the Inter-American Development Bank, the cost of physical damage from Haiti’s earthquake ranges from $8 billion to $13 billion. It says, “there are few events of such ferocity as the Haiti 2010 earthquake.”
  • The study looks at natural disasters over the past 40 years and concludes that the death toll, per capita, of Haiti’s earthquake is four times, or more, higher than any other disaster in this time period.
  • The Partners In Health agency estimates some 1.3 million people were left without shelter by the earthquake. The majority of those people still do not have adequate emergency shelter nor access to potable water, food and medical attention.
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  • According to US AID, there are approximately 600,000 displaced people living in 416 makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince. Sanitation conditions in the camps remain a grave concern. With heavy seasonal rains fast approaching, the population is extremely vulnerable to exposure and water-born disease.
  • Two leading directors of Doctors Without Borders have called the relief effort to date "broadly insufficient." In a March 5 interview, they say that, “The lack of shelter and the hygiene conditions represent a danger not only in terms of public health, but they are also an intolerable breach of the human dignity of all these people.”
  • Conditions are also critical outside the earthquake zone. Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city located 120 km north of Port au Prince, has received an estimated influx of 50,000 refugees. Its mayor, Michel St. Croix, recently told the Miami Herald, “We need housing, sanitation, security -- we need everything.'' He said the city has received next to no assistance from the United Nations nor the International Red Cross.
  • In an interview with Associated Press on March 5, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive repeated his government’s growing concern with the international aid effort. "Too many people are raising money without any controls, and don't explain what they're doing with it."
  • Farmer warned against the “trauma vultures” descending on Haiti. He asked why so many years of aid and charitable funds going to Haiti has left the country poorer than ever.
  • Canada was one of the few large countries in the world that did not send civilian emergency rescue teams to Haiti. Its official aid mission arrived one week after the earthquake in the form of two warships and 2,000 military personnel. They pitched into the relief effort and earned praise for their work. But most of the assistance brought by the military, including its field hospital in Léogâne and its emergency health center in Jacmel, have now been withdrawn.
  • “The Canadian military is not a relief agency. It helped out with short-term needs. Aid and reconstruction is a long-term process. Who is going to pick up where the military’s work left off?”
  • Prior to the earthquake, Cuba had some 350 health professionals volunteering in Haiti. That number, including graduates and students from the Latin American Medical School (ELAM) in Cuba, has expanded considerably. Since 2005, 550 Haitian doctors have graduated from ELAM. The school received its first Haitian students in 1999. Currently, there are 570 students from Haiti attending the school.
  • Timely and informative articles and videos are also posted to the website of the Canada Haiti Action Network (http://canadahaitiaction.ca/) and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (http://ijdh.org/).
Teachers Without Borders

Disaster-hit children portray woes through art - The Express Tribune - 0 views

  • One hundred and fifty paintings and sketches drawn by school children from flood-affected areas are being exhibited at Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) in Islamabad, said a press release. The exhibition “Art for Future” has been organised by a UK-based NGO Islamic Relief in collaboration with PNCA. A total of 450 entries were received for the exhibition.
Teachers Without Borders

43,000 Thai schools and hospitals pledge to uphold safety at national launch of United ... - 0 views

  • Bangkok – The Thai Government today launched the “One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals” initiative in Bangkok, with top government officials from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministries of Education, Public Health and Interior and partner agencies promising to make safety a priority at 43,004 schools and hospitals.
  • n recent years, Thailand has been experiencing intense disasters with increasing frequency. A series of flash floods in October and November 2010 – declared “one of the worst natural calamities” to hit the country – killed more than a hundred people, displaced thousands and affected six million in 38 provinces. Thousands of students were forced to evacuate their schools, with more than a thousand schools reportedly damaged.
  • “Our Government and partner agencies have pledged to spread awareness among 43,000 schools and hospitals to maintain or upgrade their safety standards.
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  • “Young people and their education are critical to a country's future. The Thai Government promises to make sure its schools can function, even in a disaster, which is a powerful statement about its commitment to human development and resilience.”
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    Bangkok - The Thai Government today launched the "One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals" initiative in Bangkok, with top government officials from the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministries of Education, Public Health and Interior and partner agencies promising to make safety a priority at 43,004 schools and hospitals.
Teachers Without Borders

Fukishama Teachers join mass Demonstration | Teacher Solidarity - 2 views

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    Teachers in the Fukishama region of Japan have joined other trade unionists in protests against the continuing nuclear emergency The teachers who are members of the Fukushima Prefecture Teachers Union are fighting to hold the government and the power company TEPCO responsible and accountable for the nuclear disaster in Japan which is cantaminating food, causing thousands of workers to lose their jobs and their livelihoods and not least means that many thousands of children are attending schools with radiation levels much higher than the previously accepted safety standards.
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