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Forum members share their experiences of the effectiveness or otherwise of public awareness, education and engagement programs in the hazard/disaster prone areas in which they have worked or lived.
In areas like this i would have to say that i dont have experience so can not really give a true indication of the effectiveness that public awareness, education and engagement programs in hazard/disaster prone areas. However i do think that in a third world country or developing country these key programs are developing slowly looking toward the near future of being better prepared
Catherine, when you have time, it would be good to get your perspective on this from the Vanuatu situation. I understand that in that country there is a week’s pre-disaster awareness in October (?), particularly related to the incoming cyclone season (Oct-March). Is this program coordinated thru’ the Red Cross ? I was also wondering, Matt, whether the government in Vietnam organises something similar prior to the annual typhoon season ?
Unfortunately I can only offer some tidbits on public health measures in Australia on things like STI prevention or travel medicine, or comment on other public health measures (e.g. smoking campaigns). There is a similar philosophy of reducing risk via public education and engagement, although it’s a different kettle of fish to emergency management and community disaster resilience. It’s more akin to the slow impact / hazard version of the DRMC. I’ve briefly done some more ‘community development’-flavoured work in Kenya before, working with a group aiming to increase local capacity to develop solutions to the problems they particularly faced – but it would be very hard to gauge how effective it was given (a) the program is ongoing, and (b) I don’t believe they have put in place any means to measure or monitor their impact, beyond anecdotal feedback when they return to a given community for repeat sessions. The only real insight I could offer from that would be that people are much more responsive to measures when they feel as though they either generated or produced the solution themselves – the public in a given region would be more engaged if they felt someone or some organisation they identify with and trust generated the awareness or engagement program. Could often work in favour of certain humanitarian groups, but could also often, very much work against them!
Would be very interested in hearing more about others’ experiences!
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