October 13th is the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDR)
... It's about reducing our risk to disasters
The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is a day to raise awareness about how people are taking action to reduce their risk to disasters. It happens every year on October 13th (learn about IDDR's history here). In 2011, the spotlight is on children and young people!
... What is Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)?
- It's a different way of thinking: "There is no such thing as a 'natural' disaster".
- For example, when a building collapses after an earthquake, we think of it as a disaster and something we can't control.
- We can't stop an earthquake from happening, but could we have prevented the building from collapsing?
- Could the building have been built so that it wouldn't have collapsed?
- Have there been earthquakes here before? If so, should we have built here in the first place?
- Disaster risk reduction is about understanding our personal and environmental risks of a hazard, like an earthquake, flood, hurricane/cyclone, and landslides and finding ways to reduce this risk so that we are not affected by them, or be able to bounce back quickly if they do affect us.
- Disasters don't have to happen. We can all do something to reduce our risk!
... Bringing out the voice of PARTNERS for disaster risk reduction!
In 2015, there's going to be a World Conference on Disaster Reduction. We want to bring out the voice of different groups of people that can and should be involved in planning for, making decisions on, and taking action to help their communities reduce their risk to disasters. We want children and young people to bring their thoughts, ideas, and inspiration to this Conference!
From now until 2015, there will be a few events to help prepare children and young people for the World Conference on Disaster Reduction:
Rio +20 - The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development will take place in Brazil on 4-6 June 2012
The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction will take place in Switzerland in 2013
The Step Up initiative will be focusing on a different group of partners every year leading up to the World Conference for Disaster Reduction!
- Children and Young People in 2011
- Women in 2012
- Elderly in 2013
- Disabled in 2014