Child Centered Risk Assessment: Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Preparedness in Schools Quetta, Jaffarabad & Naseerabad

Introduction:

In collaboration with UNICEF the project “Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Preparedness in schools” started in three focused District of Balochistan (Quetta, Jaffarabad and Naseerabad). Project aims to focus at least 100 schools of these three district amongst which 40 will be from Jaffarabad, 30 from Naseerabad (including 15 USAID built schools) and 30 from Quetta district having 30,000 beneficiaries children till December 2017. After this assessment of the focused school the orientation and demonstration exercises will take place in these 100 focused schools again. Moreover, the Disaster Management Committees (DMC’s) will also be formed and trained on Disaster Risk Reduction so the same role can be played at community level while dealing with any emergency and minimizing the effects associated with any hazard through different trainings and mock exercises. Each DMC will consist of 15 members and furthermore 100 DMC’s will be formed in all three focused Districts (having 1500 members in total, out of which 40 will be in Jaffarabad, 30 in Quetta and 30 in Naseerabad). Also to raise awareness and enhance children’s DRR related knowledge 25 quiz competition events having participation of 5000 children from three Districts of focused schools will also be conducted through UNESCO master disaster quiz kits. This learning by doing approach will help to increase their interest towards DRR and school safety and most importantly their own safety. One DRR working group will also be formed in each District having Government officials, Office of the District Education, NGO representatives, PDMA/DDMA representatives and local community members having regular meetings and trainings to build their existing capacities too. Especially the education department will be trained on school safety, preparedness and resilience through workshops, seminars and training exercises. These trainings and participation of local government departments are also important from a sustainability point of view too. Upon the project completion they will at least have basic understanding, awareness and capacity in order to deal with DRR and school safety and most importantly prepare themselves and further disseminate the same practices and awareness at school and community level, even for those schools which are not the part of this DRR and emergency preparedness phase.