Education

Education and DRR

Disaster risk reduction and education is an interactive process of mutual learning between people and institutions.

Reducing risk and vulnerability to disasters requires people understanding how they can best protect themselves, their property and their livelihoods.

The key to education and disaster risk reduction is sharing and using information and knowledge in a productive way through awareness-raising and educational initiatives so that people make informed decisions and take action to ensure their resilience to disasters.

Tilly Smith, an eleven-year-old schoolgirl was on holiday in Thailand with her family when the tsunami hit in December 2004. Tilly's story highlights the critical importance of basic education in preventing the tragic impacts of disasters.

Education and DRR is about formal and informal ways of exchanging knowledge.

It encompasses both formal education at schools and universities and informal education such as the recognition and use of traditional wisdom and local knowledge for protection from natural hazards. Education is conveyed through experience, established learning arrangements, information technology, staff training, electronic and print media and other means that facilitate the sharing of information and knowledge to citizens, professionals, organizations and policymakers, among a range of other community stakeholders.

Education is a crucial means within local communities around the world to communicate, to motivate, and to engage, as much as it is to teach. Awareness and learning about risks and dangers needs to start in early education, continuing through generations.

GAMES!

The following lists games developed by UNISDR in collaboration with other partners to raise awareness and educate people about disaster risk reduction.

Stop Disasters

Your role: To plan and construct a safer environment for your community. You need to assess the risks and try to limit the damage when hazards strike. Expect (good and bad) advice along the way!

Created in 2007, this simulation game is a interactive way to learn and understand the human, physcial, and financial cost of disasters, how to reduce the risk and best methods for prevention.

Play the Game

Riskland and Educational Toolkit

UNISDR and UNICEF have together produced an educational kit for children called "Let’s learn to prevent disasters!". It includes the board game 'Riskland' whereby players learn about what they can do to reduce disaster impacts by answering questions and advancing along the board's winding path. It aims to provide the educational community and children with an innovative and interactive tool for risk management.

Download the Game

Magnitude

This board game is a model of the choices and consequences government ministers face when trying to further their nation’s development. It asks groups of 4 players ("national ministers") to implement a plan to maximize their nation’s achievements towards the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target year of 2015 in an environment where disasters do occur as a fact, and thereby affect the country's progress toward those goals.

Download the Game

Education & School Safety News
The resilient future young people want 23 May 2013
Global Platform calls for immediate start on developing targets for risk reduction 23 May 2013
Tangible Earth opens new window on risk 22 May 2013

View more UNISDR Education & School Safety news

Education & School Safety Documents
Towards the resilient future children want: a review of progress in achieving the Children’s Charter for Disaster Risk Reduction SOURCE: Plan Intl; UNISDR; UNICEF; WVI; SCI 2013
Aqaba declaration on disaster risk reduction in cities SOURCE: SDC, Switzerland - gov; UNISDR ROAS; Jordan - gov; LAS; UNDP Jordan; ASEZA, Jordan - gov 2013
Making Lebanon resilient: achieving disaster risk reduction in the Arab States - Good practice country brief SOURCE: UNISDR ROAS; Lebanon - gov; UNDP Lebanon 2012