Risk Wise

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dination with the respective local government authorities

and uses range of quantitative and qualitative methods to

gather evidence on school resilience. In many ways this

is a mitigation measure.

The audit covered schools in a range of disaster-prone

areas: flood-affected portions of Assam, Rajasthan, and

Maharashtra; earthquake-affected portions of Gujarat and

Jammu and Kashmir; and tsunami-affected portions of

Tamil Nadu. In each of these areas the audit assessed the

staff understanding of hazard safety, the structural safety

and preparedness plans, and the impact of existing miti-

gation measures. The influence of non-school actors –

government, non-governmental organization (NGO) and

corporate – on school safety was also reviewed. Although

the comprehensive analysis of findings is pending, the

following five points are clearly emerging:

1. Processes and methods that reduce disaster risks –

such as the design of seismically safe buildings – are

not considered even after the area served by the school

has faced a major disaster. School buildings are often

structurally unsafe.

2. The focus of reconstruction after any disaster has

been on new and big buildings and not on safer school

buildings. Size matters. Safety does not.

3. The schools that are safer have not shared their

experiences with schools that need to rebuild. Schools

are temples of learning but school-to-school learning on

safety is not occurring.

4. The teachers in the surveyed schools have high

levels of interest in making schools safe. They do not

know where to access basic, useful information. Current

constraints in time and resources inhibit this access.

5. Where school safety activities are promoted by

NGOs, government or the corporate sector, follow-up

is often lacking. This almost guarantees that the high-

cost initial effort will have diminishing returns. In short,

we are not demonstrating sufficient concern for the

safety of our children.

campaign has undertaken a dynamic effort to empower schools for

disaster preparedness and response.

In conjunction with local partners in six states, the campaign iden-

tifies India’s most vulnerable schools and supports them with training

programmes, disaster education, risk-transfer initiatives and other

capacity-building mechanisms. Its operations place emphasis on Hyogo

Framework for Action (HFA)

and Tsunami Evaluation Coalition

recommendations, and the Minimum Standards of Education in

Emergencies guidelines of the Inter-Agency Network for Education in

Emergencies.

Awareness, education and training comprise the central

elements of the campaign’s work. The campaign reaches out to rural and

urban schools in disaster-prone and disaster-affected areas, training

staff in disaster and accident response, helping schools to develop emer-

gency response procedures, educating students in disaster preparedness

and distributing educational materials to students, staff and parents.

The Child’s Right to Safer Schools campaign operates largely on a

local level; it helps schools to build capacities for managing their own

disaster risk reduction activities. It reaches schools specifically targeted

for disaster mitigation assistance, and in doing so promotes disaster

preparedness for vulnerable communities. It works in partnership with

civil society organizations and government bodies such as District

Chief Education Officers or Block Resource Centres. The campaign

supplies schools with fire extinguishers and first aid kits, covers

students and teachers with disaster microinsurance to ease financial

hardship incurred by accidents and disasters, and provide additional

community-tailored, need-based assistance. AIDMI, with ProVention

Consortium,

is promoting the use of risk transfer approaches in India

and beyond through demonstration and research. The campaign works

with more than 400 vulnerable schools across these six states in India.

It strives to meet the recommendations of the UN International

Strategy for Disaster Reduction’s HFA. The table below demonstrates

how campaign activities comply with the Hyogo Framework.

School Safety Audit

A recent school safety audit in 60 schools in six hazard-prone states

of India revealed that school safety is not a high priority for either

public or corporate officials. The audit method was developed with

schoolteachers, school administrators, parents and children, in coor-

Nearly half of all victims of natural disasters are children under the age of 15

Image: AIDMI. Bihar flood recovery 2007

Damage to school structures induces injuries and also setbacks to

enrolment and progress, which can last for many months

Image: AIDMI. Jammu and Kashmir earthquake 2005