[S23-P] Poster

[S23-P-02] Outreach Programs for school children in India

^○Srinagesh D¹, Satoko Oki², Rajendar Chadha¹ (1.CSIR-NGRI, Hyderabad, 2.Keio University, Tokyo)

The need of the hour is to encourage people to take preventive measures against disasters and also, empower the individuals to take appropriate measures in an event of emergency to save their lives. The approach adopted by scientists is to disseminate intangible information on the up-to date seismological knowledge. However, this is not sufficient as it is repeatedly proved that knowledge alone does not have enough impact on individuals behavioural aspects. Our challenge is to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice by designing an effective Disaster Preparedness Education Program. This should be applicable to other regions in the world, even with different geological, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. A pragmatic and new approach has to be adopted which are community based understanding of disaster risks and personal empowerment to take preventive actions. In this presentation, the good practices and lessons learned from various case studies in disaster preparedness in Japan, were implemented to Indian scenario by holding workshops jointly by CSIR-NGRI, India, ERI, Tokyo and Keio University Japan at Jawahar Navodaya schools in the Lesser Himalayan Region in North India, under an Indo-Japan collaborative DISANET project Also, we carried forward this program by adopting twin approaches in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Jharkhand and Rajasthan where our broad band seismological stations are in operation at Jawahar Navodaya Schools under different scientific programs allowed us to disseminate information on earthquakes and essentials of safety required during an earthquake through examples and empowering the school children for translating knowledge into personal empowerment to undertake preventive actions during disaster.