Civil unrest in Northern Africa and the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan have brought untold suffering to the lives of millions of children, and a question in the minds of ECD practitioners in South Africa must certainly be: “What would we do if disaster struck here – and how could children be equipped to deal with it?”

Speaking in the wake of Japan’s tragedy, Plan International’s disaster response policy coordinator, Dr Unni Krishnan, said, “It is always vulnerable groups like children who bear the brunt of these disasters the most. Plan knows this all too well from its experience working with children and communities for the last 70 years.”

But rather than casting children as passive victims swept along by events, Plan sees them as key players in protecting communities and works towards integrating children into emergency response. Five years ago the organisation committed itself to protecting children from the impact of disasters and is today a leading agency in “child-centred disaster risk reduction”. It has worked with 14 countries to teach children skills in protecting themselves and communities against natural disasters, and its starting-point is to ask children to identify the most common or likely disasters to occur in their region or country – from there on, it’s a case of helping children and communities devise plans of action.

“For example, if an area is prone to flooding, members of the community will need to be warned about how to militate against the worst effects of this flooding.” This might entail:

• working out the information flow so that people can have advance notice of imminent floods – e.g., getting the contact details of friends in nearby villages who can be called on for this information;
• raising awareness among the community of how to deal with these situations – e.g., by acting out scenarios as plays performed for the community;
• locating safe and dry places where emergency supplies could be stored;
• deciding which of the children would go door to door to spread the news of oncoming floods;
• establishing a procedure for evacuating to higher or safe ground.

“As well as building a culture of safety and resilience and supporting children to help prevent and minimise disaster impacts, the long-term perspective of child-centred disaster risk reduction work empowers young people to make informed choices and helps communities begin to plan for more sustainable practices.”

Save the Children has adopted a similar vision of children’s capabilities. “The poorest children [are] up to ten times more likely to be hit by climate disaster than those better off,” the organisation said. But “while the risks and distortions to children’s lives from climate change are substantial, children should not be seen as vulnerable victims.

“Save the Children’s experience across the world … has consistently shown that when children are empowered and engaged in addressing and preparing for environmental and disaster risks, the results are substantial.”

As part of its campaign to keep children’s issues squarely on the climate-change agenda, Save the Children has published the following statistics:

• More than 160 million children are seriously affected by climate change today.
• Climate change could kill 250,000 children next year and the figure could rise to more than 400,000 a year by 2030.
• 25 million children will be malnourished as a result of climate change by 2050, according to IFPRI, September 2009
• 175 million children a year – equivalent to almost three times the population of Great Britain – will suffer the consequences of natural disasters like cyclones, droughts and floods by 2030.
• Over 1.5 billion million children in the next generation will experience water shortages
• 160 million more children in the next generation will be at risk of catching malaria – one of the biggest killers of children under five – as it spreads to new parts of the world.
• Between 25 and 100 million children could be forced to leave their homes by 2050.
• An estimated 85,000 children die every year from diarrhoea as a result of climate change.

(Source: http://www.savethechildren.net/alliance/media/newsdesk/2010-11-29.html#)