UNISDR invites all children to step up for disaster risk reduction
On October 13, countries around the world will observe the International Day for Disaster Reduction (IDDR).
This year for IDDR in Bangkok, the Asia Pacific Regional Office of UNISDR and its partners ESCAP, UNICEF, Plan International, and World vision is calling on children and youth to ‘Step Up for Disaster Risk Reduction!’ and
voice their concerns and inputs about what can be done to better protect communities against disasters.
The International Day for Disaster Reduction is organised every year on October 13t to celebrate and raise awareness about what we can all do to reduce our risk to disasters from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and tornados.
A Children’s Chartre for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is central to this year’s IDDR. It highlights five priorities identified through consultations with more than 600 children in 21 countries. Amongst those priorities are issues such as safe schools; child protection; participation; access to information; safe infrastructure; risk reduction and; protection for the
most vulnerable.
According to a Save the Children 2007 report entitled Legacy of Disasters, “In the next decade, up to 175 million children are likely to be affected every year by disasters.” Yet while children are among the most vulnerable groups to disasters they are also the future leaders, architects, mayors and citizens of our cities.
“While children are often victims of disaster events, we must also recognise the potential of young people to bring about change. We know they are more instinctive, determined, invested with purpose and very rarely bogged down by long drawn out theoretical discussions. Demonstrating our trust in them on International Disaster Reduction Day as participants and key agents of social demand is vitally important for global risk reduction efforts,” said UNISDR Chief Margareta Wahlström.
In Bangkok, UNISDR and its partners will join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Day for Disaster Management (ADDM), the Thailand Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM), the ASEAN
Secretariat and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and organize a major awareness raising event with children at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok.
Thirteen children who won the ASEAN and SAARC drawing competition will be officially awarded and invited to join children from the district of Chiang Mai and the Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok to symbolically step
up for disaster risk reduction and discuss ways to reduce their vulnerabilities to disasters and implement the Children’s Charter adopted at the last Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held in Geneva in May 2011.
The children’s dialogue will be followed in the afternoon by a round table with representatives of the Thailand DMPM and mayors of Uttradit, Chiang Rai, Had Yai and Puket on enhancing local actions and commitments on DRR to better protect communities and cities. The discussions will be particularly relevant in the wake of recent floods in Uttradit and other parts of Thailand.
