Instilling disaster preparedness in grade school children

MANILA, Philippines - Just last week, another super typhoon hit the country. Slow-moving typhoon Lando (International name: Koppu) affected almost one million people, damaged more than P7 billion worth of property, and claimed innocent lives as it wrecked Central Luzon.

Sad to say, in this and many other instances, damage to life and property could have been scaled down if only citizens were more aware and prepared.

This is why, learning its lesson from super typhoon Yolanda, the government has intensified its campaign to mitigate the damage of typhoons that are coming into the country.

While information dissemination programs being implemented from the national all the way down to the barangay level are good, the gears have to shift to another direction: the path towards disaster preparedness.

As a result, the Department of Education, in partnership with various government agencies, has integrated disaster preparedness lessons into their curriculum to ensure that students as early as grade school are better informed on what they need to do before disasters such as typhoons strike.

Still, much work needs to be done, as the concept of disaster is sometimes too complex for a young child to understand. How to explain the difference between a tsunami and a storm surge to a grade school child? How can they be made to understand the meaning of color-coded rainfall warning signals and typhoon signals and how these should impact their behavior?

“How about promoting preparedness lifestyle to children,” asked Darwin Flores, community partnerships head of Smart Communications Inc. From this question rose the idea of creating a series of disaster-readiness educational videos especially designed for children who are most vulnerable during disasters.

The video series, entitled “Maging Laging Handa”, covers precautionary measures and safety tips for various calamities such as typhoons, floods, tsunamis, storm surges, earthquakes, and landslides.

“We wanted to tailor-fit our project to what the children understand, so we commissioned people to compose music that the children will easily recall,” Flores said.

The video series has the stamp of approval of key government agencies, including the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and  Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.

“We were also able to partner with the Department of Education so they will be using the video series as additional resources for their elementary disaster risk reduction education. They have also developed a teacher’s guide as to how these videos can be integrated in the curriculum,” he added.

Ramon Isberto, Smart Public Affairs head, said they are happy to collaborate with government partners on the project. “It’s good to include the children, as early as now, in the entire preparedness exercise as we try to become a nation that is more capable and ready for any type of disaster,” he said.

The three short videos feature Tonipet Gabba as online instructor, and three puppets namely Inay Lena, a mother hen; Brownie, a dog; and Kali, a carabao.

Smart has been holding caravans all over the country for household preparedness, and supporting different government agencies to help strengthen the disaster management capacities of local government units.

“We do programs like this because we believe they benefit the greater majority. As they say, education combats ignorance,” Flores stated.

Shifting the focus from disaster response to disaster preparedness is a very practical idea to minimize damages of properties and lives, and with Smart Communications trying to start that crusade through educating the young, we’re already one step ahead of the game.