Chapter 6 Innovative Approaches in Disaster Education

In the previous chapters, disaster education was discussed based on the aspect of the place where disaster education was conducted – in school, in the household, and in the community. Generally, school disaster education is regarded as formal disaster education, while household and community disaster education as informal disaster education. School-based stand-alone courses are perhaps the easiest programs to implement on a large scale and within a short time frame (Petal, 2009). However, to achieve community-based disaster management, stakeholder involvement is important. If students learn with the community, the learning may be regarded as informal or semi-formal education. When the community, including students, learn about disaster management, local contexts are important to be considered. Anticipated hazards, stakeholders, availability of human and physical resources, extent of threatened or affected area, culture, history, and other various factors can be taken into account. In addition, when the community and students learn together, there are at least two actors. This means that disaster education programs should focus on both community members and students as the target learners. Therefore, such education programs cannot be discussed from the aspect of place of education like school, community, or household. Shaw and Takeuchi (2008) emphasized the importance of the participatory approach. Thus, it is necessary to consider how education programs should be conducted. As described before, it is necessary to consider various factors and situations in order to provide disaster education programs that meet local contexts. In this regard, a standardized disaster education program is not appropriate. Therefore, people/organizations who/that organize disaster education programs should need to play important roles so that the disaster education program becomes effective. In other words, the organizers need to consider how they provide disaster education as well as what they provide.