Schools are powerful symbols of progress and development. Schools represent our children – the nation’s hope for the future – and their education. In recent disasters in the Philippines, many school buildings were damaged due to various natural hazards like earthquakes, floods, landslides and typhoon causing a number of casualties. Creating “safe school” involves an integrated strategy among the stakeholders. Aside from assuring that school buildings are safe and sound during a hazardous event, a safe school must promote a culture of safety where the students and teachers are aware of the risks to hazards and prepared to respond during emergencies and emergencies. Hence, this presentation highlights the SOS Tips Infographics, one of the components of the project on “Strengthening ORDER in Schools (S.O.S).” The S.O.S. Project is part of the “Philippines Resilience of Schools to Multi Hazard” or PRISMH project funded by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and has a component on the development of materials for Organizational Resilience in Disasters & Emergency Response (ORDER).
The SOS Tips Infographics aims to increase awareness of school children and teachers on what to do before, during, and after a hazardous event such as earthquakes, strong winds, typhoons and floods. The S.O.S. Tips infographics are of three modules: (a) S.O.S. Tips on Emergency Evacuation, (b) S.O.S. Tips on Wind, Typhoon and Flood and (c) S.O.S. Tips on Earthquakes.
The S.O.S. Tips on Emergency Evacuation emphasize that an evacuation site and evacuation route are critical components in a school emergency and disaster preparedness plan. Hence, this module provides simple tips on identifying the evacuation assembly area and/or sites and evacuation routes based on hazards and simple rules during evacuation that students must follow.
The S.O.S. Tips on Wind, Typhoon and Flood provide tips on what do during and after the hazardous event whether inside the classroom or outside the school building.
The S.O.S. Tips on Earthquakes also provide guidance to students on what to during an earthquake if indoors or outdoors and what to do after the earthquake ground shaking.
The S.O.S. Tips Infographics are appropriate not only to school children in grade school or high school but even to college students since the messages are general. The infographics design is simple with meaningful cartoon images and catchy and readable texts. The infographics can be adopted in the school curriculum as a teaching and learning material in the subject on Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction.
The infographics are readily available in the internet. Just click the highlighted S.O.S. Tips Infographics links.
