Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Marla Petal on October 22, 2008 at 12:31

Hi, I'm Marla Petal. I'm a co-Director of our little "virtual ngo", Risk RED. I have been making ends meet by working as a short-term consultant to the UNISDR, UNESCO, UNICEF, and a couple of NGOs over the past couple of years, while trying to fill some of the gaps between knowledge and action for disaster prevention. Most of this work has been on collecting the soon-to-be-online Global Online Library for DRR Education Materials, and the soon-to-be published Disaster Prevention for Schools: Guidelines for Decision-Makers in Education.

I'm trying to support the development of the Coalition for Global School Safety and Disaster Prevention Education and the UNISDR Thematic Platform for Knowledge and Education as ways to link all of our efforts and to learn to use web 2.0 tools to "work smarter".

I've been working and researching in "DRR Education" for the past 9 years, since the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake. However, I first learned about these issues as a school board member in S. California, so I still feel very connected to the tasks in California schools... We developed the COGSS Mother Slide Show 2 years ago, with inspiration from Tracy Monk, in Vancouver and a little support from EERI.

I have observed (recently) that the term "disaster risk reduction" is only meaningful to those of us who have made this our profession and is widely abused by everyone. There are shelves of educational materials that jump directly from "hazard awareness" to "response preparedness" and almost NO ONE teaches "risk reduction". Almost no one even uses the term "risk reduction" when talking with their own parents or siblings about what they do.... Which is why I don't do that anymore. Instead, I mostly spend my time on selling "disaster prevention" education. My favorite book right now is "Made to Stick" which I think sums up where we have ALL missed the boat in making our issues salient to other people - so I am in search of "Stories" that are Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, and Emotional.

So beyond the excitement of a serious scenario drill, and the amazing opportunity to work with all of you together in one place!! what interests me is a) whether the drill itself is an opportunity to raise understanding and commitment to "disaster prevention" and b) what structural and non-structural risk reduction measures remain to be taken to make schools in California safer.

I am really hoping that by coming together for this learning opportunity we will be able to continue to keep the fire lit under our colleagues world wide!

Permalink Reply by Pedro Bastidas on October 22, 2008 at 15:13

Hi, I am Pedro Bastidas, an Architect from Venezuela specialized in school buildings vulnerability reduction. For thirteen years I worked with the Department of Sustainable Development of the Organization of American States as part of the Natural Hazards Project team. At the OAS we executed several projects for Latin America and the Caribbean. I was in charge of the School Vulnerability Reduction Program and part of the team developing the Hemispheric Action Plan for Vulnerability Reduction in the Education Sector. Also I have shared some experience in this field with the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and most recently with UNICEF-TACRO, Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

I am supporting the Coalition for Global Safety and Disaster Prevention Education as a co chair for the Latin American working group, a support group for the Spanish-speaking countries. I am sharing information with colleagues in the region and encouraging them to get involved in the COGSS discussions.

My interest is in activities incorporating vulnerability reduction in the school building process, including planning, design, and maintenance. I am looking forward to meet you all and continue sharing learning experiences in disaster risk reduction in the education sector.

Permalink Reply by Rebekah Green on October 23, 2008 at 20:19

Hi all,

I'm excited that we will all be meeting each other in November. I am a research associate at the Institute for Global and Community Resilience, at Western Washington University. (This is near Seattle for those of you unfamiliar to US geography).

I started working in disaster reduction in Turkey, while doing my dissertation in structural engineering and cultural anthropology. I met Marla and others there, working at the Istanbul Disaster Preparedness Education Project/Program. I led efforts to develop two public education training program, one on non-structural mitigation for earthquakes, and another on basic earthquake resistant construction principles. I've also worked with Marla in Central Asia on principles for earthquake resistant adobe construction.

Since that time, my interests have broadened. I work with community groups on recovery planning in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. At the institute, I'm also working on a bunch of projects all connected to community planning that integrates disaster reduction and sustainable development. I'm also the current moderator of the ENDRR-L listserv which focuses on disaster risk reduction education.

A year and a half ago, I heard a speech by the lead researcher of the ShakeOut. Her focus was almost exclusively on the issues of geology and infrastructure fragility....of course big parts of the ShakeOut scenario. I was struck by how much this could also be a participatory learning opportunity at the local level, such as in schools. Marla and I (and later Justin) have been drafting and redrafting proposals to get the funds to look at how the ShakeOut might be a local and international learning opportunity for school safety. I'm very excited that, at an impossibly last minute, we've found a bit of funds for this.

Hopefully we can pull this off and it will be useful for us all, and for our partner LA school districts!

Permalink Reply by Bernadette Woit on November 2, 2008 at 22:28

Hi! I am Bernadette Woit, from Vancouver, BC Canada. I am a schools emergency preparedness and planning coordinator. I work with the municipal emergency management office and liaise with school districts to educate, develop and exercise their emergency response procedures and plans. We take an all hazards approach to emergency preparedness - severe storms, flood, fires, landslides, earthquakes plus now we have added to our repetoire, lockdown responses and drills for intruders. I have co-written "Emergency Management for North Shore School" manual. It follows the basics of the Incident Command System, adapted for schools use. Our big focus has been on family reunification / student release in the event of an emergency / disaster. In my role, I educate school board and school's staff on personal preparedness and responding to an emergency/incident/disaster. We have developed emergency response handbooks, standardized plans, brochures to parents with a focus on student release and exercises. The key is to liaise emergency management at a provincial and municipal level with school districts, to share information of how schools fit in, or not, to municipal planning. Moreover, the communication from schools, to school board office to the EOC.
I participate on a Public Education & Safety Advisory Committee; president of the Emergency Social Sevices(ESS) Association of BC (if you are not familiar with ESS, they are the group of volunteers that assist evacuees) and various other adhoc committees.
I am on the local emergency management team, which in the event of an incident or disaster in our community (North & West Vancouver), we may be the ones to determine if a local emergency operations centre (EOC) is required and if so, establish and contact the mayors and provincial groups; establish need for reception centres for evacuees and liaise between the municipal mayor and the provincial government. I have had response roles for the forest fires in the Okanagan, floods in Squamish, windstorm in West Vancouver and a landslide in North Vancouver.
So, in a nutshell, my background is emergency management and I am marrying that with schools, so information, policies and responses are all linked with provincial and community partners. My goal is that schools fit into the provincial mandate of emergency management with funding for preparedness, planning, response and recovery. Currently, schools emergency preparedness and planning is optional.
I am really looking forward to meeting you all shortly! Marla, Rebekah & Justin, thanks for all your pre-planning to make this event a 'go'!