For youth: Cebu hosts preparedness disaster forum

CEBU, Philippines - For 20-year-old Jaywils Adlawan, super typhoon Yolanda, despite being a monster typhoon that wreaked havoc in his area last year and left scores dead, triggered his interest to know more about disaster preparedness.

Adlawan, who hails from Naga-Naga, Tacloban City, was among the hundred participants who gathered in Cebu for a three-day consultative conference on youth participation in disaster risk reduction and management for the Visayas-Mindanao Leg.

The activity, organized by the National Youth Commission, was concluded yesterday at the Capitol Social Hall.

“Naghatag ni og awareness para sa amo atleast kamao mi unsa among himuon lalo na karon nga gipaabot ang bagyo (Ruby). Akong matabangan ang youth unsay proper himuon during emergency situation,” said Adlawan.

The conference discussed four thematic areas covered by the NDRRMP where youth can participate, namely: the disaster prevention and mitigation, disaster preparedness, disaster response, and disaster recovery and rehabilitation.

During the event, the participants were made to create inputs and recommendations which will be submitted to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council for review.

The NYC wants the youth sector to be represented in the national and community DRRMC and be involved in planning and decision-making of local government units.

Commissioner-at-large for the NYC and actor Jose Sixto “Dingdong” Dantes III, who graced the closing program yesterday, said the youth, being a vulnerable sector of the society and making up 30 percent of the population of the country, should not be left out in terms of disaster preparedness.

“Nagiging biktima rin ang mga kabataan. We want them to become part of the solution. And being included in the council is one of the ways in showing active youth participation,” he told reporters.

Dantes said the outputs from the three-day activity will be adopted by the commission as basis in coming up with a resolution calling for the representation of youth in DRRMC from the national to community level.

He further mentioned “Project Agos,” an online platform piloted by Rappler, where youth can actively participate considering that many are into social media.

Dantes said the online platform involves the youth in mapping out dangerous situations on the ground and report them so that authorities can respond easily.

“It (report) goes through a system na magsasabing tama talaga ang report na ‘to. It goes two more levels in validating kung tama ba iyong information,” the actor added. — Michael Vencynth H. Braga/NSA (FREEMAN)