Background
What is Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)?
It's a different way of thinking: "There is no such thing as a 'natural' disaster". For example, when a building collapses after an earthquake, we think of it as a disaster and something we can't control. We can't stop an earthquake from happening, but could we have prevented the building from collapsing? Could the building have been built so that it wouldn't have collapsed? Have there been earthquakes here before? If so, should we have built here in the first place?
Disaster risk reduction is about understanding our personal and environmental risks of a hazard, like an earthquake, flood, hurricane/cyclone, and landslides and finding ways to reduce this risk so that we are not affected by them, or be able to bounce back quickly if they do affect us.
Disasters don't have to happen. We can all do something to reduce our risk!
Children and Young People Commitment to Disaster Risk Reduction
During this year's Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva, three young people told more than 2600 representatives from governments, the private sector and civil society why and how children can be involved in reducing disaster risk, and keeping themselves and their communities safe.
They also launched a five-point Children's Charter for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Charter highlights five priorities identified through consultations with more than 600 children in 21 countries. Education, child protection and access to basic information were the main issues the children believed necessary to reduce the impact of disasters and climate change on their families and communities.
The five priorities in the Children's Charter for Disaster Risk Reduction are:
- Schools must be safe - education must be uninterrupted.
- Child protection must be a priority, before, during and after a disaster.
- Children and young people have the right to participate and to access the information they need.
- Community infrastructure must be safe, and relief and reconstruction must help reduce future disaster risk.
- Disaster risk reduction must reach the most vulnerable.