"Safer Schools and Safer Children"

[Colonel N M Verma]

Dear Friends,

Give school children a chance to prepare for disasters and educate them. A country like India has millions of school children in rural and urban poor pockets who are vulnerable to disasters and impacts of climate change. They form the base of the pyramid of preparedness process, yet, there is little access of information, knowledge, thus capacity building. They do not have resources to make use of most valuable tools prepared by experts and practitioners of developed countries. They need committed experts and practitioners to reach to them and empower them. Saritsa Foundation is making a small contribution for the school safety of these needy and vulnerable children.

Towards its mission, Saritsa Foundation has launched "Safer Schools, Safer Children, Safer Mumbaikars" Campaign to Reduce Risks from disasters and impacts of climate change for 2 years on 8 July 2009. The first workshop was organized in view of gender equality where girls and boys had equal partnership including representation by women and men teachers. The school Rescue Teams prepared for the school were also composed with equal participation. This school has children from poor and disadvantaged families. The second workshop was organized for the teachers undergoing training for school teachers. This group of participants which belongs to ethnic minority community was chosen for this capacity building training workshop. Some of the photographs are displayed here.

It gives me pleasure to share with you that the team of Saritsa Foundation led by me to participate in the Global platform for disaster risk reduction conference at Geneva from 15 June to 19 June. Saritsa Foundation advocated a paradigm shift in the presently followed approach for preparing communities where capacity building practices trickle down from "Top to Bottom" and may take long to empower most vulnerable at the base of pyramid to Bottom Upwards approach. Also, this may be supported by allocation of resources by international organizations and national governments to reach to lowest level earliest.