Disaster education: Let's learn from the kids

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Better not waste time on educating adults about things like sustainable development and being prepared for disasters.

"It doesn't work," said Peter Butcher of the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. "But when kids go home from school and show their projects, parents notice."

In a workshop last week Butcher showed how experts on New Zealand's numerous disasters like volcanic eruptions worked with schools in engaging children in fun activities, in learning about living with their environment.

This year in schools in Banda Aceh, one of the hardest hit areas of the December tsunami, giggling and squealing children were evident in a number of sessions with Japanese volunteers. The volunteers, including university students and professors in engineering, taught them preparedness in facing quakes and tsunamis.

But whether adults notice or not, there is no choice but public education, particularly in countries where the population is forever sitting on the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis, as in Japan, or quakes, volcanic eruptions and also tsunamis, as in Indonesia.

So experts gathered here at a workshop held by UNESCO and others to seek ways to make education effective, both in preventing disasters through sustainable ways of living, and coping with disasters to minimize loss and damage.

Another expert said it was no use, either, to tell locals in a quake-prone zone to build homes according to quake-proof designs even though it is the most sensible thing to do. "I've stopped trying to explain all that to people," says Teddy Boen, a senior advisor to the World Seismic Safety Initiative.

For all the fashionable talk on local wisdom and traditional designs, he said "once people have money they want better social status and a concrete home."

A more effective way, he said, has been to advise people on how to strengthen their homes based on commonly used material such as bricks, cement and timber.

Participants said education material was now abundant, particularly after the December tsunami, but it was still a problem to raise enough public interest.

Ahead of the International Disaster Prevention Day of Oct. 12 the Jakarta administration and the Indonesian Society for Disaster Prevention (MPBI) held a "disaster awareness week" through Sept. 22.

A large portion of the event, which included an exhibition at the National Monument Park, camping and a seminar, was focused on flooding in Jakarta.

In March, the UN also declared this the Decade for Education on Sustainable Development.