Plan
Seventeen-year-old Evelyn’s school in El Salvador is in a landslide risk zone and is located underneath a large boulder. She told us: “If it falls, it would destroy the school. The teachers have written several letters for help but nobody does anything, so when it rains they cancel classes so that nobody is in danger… When it rains I don’t feel safe at the school, I feel safer at home; I’m afraid to be at the school.” Evelyn went on to tell us that she and her classmates could be supported by training: “My role as a young person, I think, is to take care of the younger children. If anything like this happens then we have to help the teachers to calm the children down at the school. If we get trained then that knowledge shouldn’t stay just with us… we would have to teach the rest of the grades what to do in case of emergency.” Eighteen-year-old Hoa from Vietnam said: “In my opinion, girls should have their own sense of responsibility. They should improve their knowledge through watching Tv, reading newspapers or learning at school. When disaster strikes, I must keep calm; and together with my parents be ready to put preparedness plans into action.” She went on to say that youth unions could play a role in helping girls to overcome difficulties faced in the disaster. This sentiment was echoed by other girls in Vietnam, including 19-year old Hue: “Children’s clubs should be set up and children can join to share all of their concerns and the way to respond to an emergency. The thing that I can do by myself is to organise [training in] swimming techniques, resuscitation or basic life skills. When disaster occurs, girls will have different personal needs.” Another group of girls between 13 and 15 in Vietnam suggested the use of home tutoring in order to help girls stay on top of their school work, and “support and communicate with girls on personal hygiene or food to avoid disease”. April, from the Philippines, talked of the ‘happy’ feeling she got from helping her family during a typhoon: “It seems that you feel light, that you gave help, and it seems that you need not think of anything else.” Suggestions from the 13 to 16-year-olds in Vietnam showed how they would like to see a wide variety of risk reduction activities in place directly targeting girls. They had some very practical suggestions: make sure girls have a ‘safe space’ to go to after a disaster, ‘provide life jackets’, ‘provide separate temporary shelters and additional health checks for girls’. Aileen, 17, from the Philippines felt that “There should be separate evacuation centres for male and female” following disasters. Aileen also went on to say that “If there are males and females,
Drr training in El salvador. when sleeping you should be beside your mother, so that someone will look after you.” Mynelyn, 17, from the Philippines added that “women should have privacy” in bathing facilities. Sixteen-year-old Linda from El Salvador said that in her community, “some sanitary pads came with the food; but I didn’t see if any toys came”. When asked if her life had changed because of the flood she experienced, Linda told us: “I think so. I had never seen anything like it, I think I have changed, because the first time I saw it I was very afraid, but when it happened a second time I thought to myself ‘this has happened to me before’ and I wasn’t as fearful as I felt the first time.” Thirteen-year-old April from the Philippines says that ‘self-confidence’ is the key to unlocking opportunities for girls in disaster situations and governments could do this by providing what girls “personally need for themselves… personal effects like comb, clothes, shampoo and soap, and footwear.” Girls talked of the importance of having a female representative or leader in their village committees, and as April rightly says, having female representation and girls’ feedback on what they need during and after disasters is important “because she herself will be the one to say what she knows, about her experiences, and what should be done”. Linda, 16, from El Salvador, went further: “youth should be trained on sex education and sexuality, often young people need that… I think we need more training on leadership, lots of times young people don’t learn because there is nobody to teach us… and also we should learn about emergency plans and other topics.” She added: “There are many people who say that we shouldn’t have a say because we are too young, but I do think that we can add our own ideas too.” 127