"Let's Ask the Youths", is NEMO's approach to raising awareness on disaster risk reduction within high schools. Today, they hosted their first ever Disaster Risk Reduction forum with over 100 students in attendance. Jomarie Lanza stopped by and spoke to one of the organizers who shared more details with us.
How do we keep our youths involved and engaged in disaster risk reduction practices? How can they do their part in their communities in the event of an emergency or natural disaster? It all begins with keeping them informed and up to date as it relates to climate change and its impacts, and for the first time UNICEF along with the Ministry Of Disaster Risk Management have teamed up to host a youth forum to educate these young minds on issues surrounding disaster risk reduction.
Jenna Hoare, Emergency Officer, UNICEF Belize
"UNICEF plays a critical role when it comes to advancing disaster risk reduction portfolios in the country and so when we partner with the national emergency management organization on this initiative what we wanted to do was provide a platform for young persons to engage in conversations around disaster risk reduction. When you hear about the concept or terminology of disaster risk management, reduction, resiliency vulnerability its new concepts and so we really. Wanted to provide a platform for young persons so that they can feel empowered and start to engage in these types of conversation from early on and so we partnered with NEMO for this initiative and also it is the beginning of what we call the international day of disaster risk reduction which is recognized on October 13th. So we really wanted to advance in having young persons be apart of the conversation from early on."
It's a partnership that also involves civil society organizations, like Galen, the red cross and The Belize Fire Department to keep the sessions interactive between them and the youths and also brief them on the role that they play in disaster risk management.
Jenna Hoare, Emergency Officer, UNICEF Belize
"We are working very closely with the different high schools within the Belize District and the Cayo district we also partnered with tertiary level education, so we have a total of 100 young persons who are actually at this event today who have committed to say that they want to be a part of the conversation concerning building a more resilient community for Belize."
"So when we were coming up with the concept for this youth forum, we wanted something very dynamic and interactive. We wanted less presentations and so what we really focused on to have this interactive session is to have a marketplace from the different civil Society organizations from NGOs and from academia even and to be a part of this because we are trying to showcase the different organizations that work closely when it comes to disaster risk management within the country. So they are here today to showcase what their organization does and we also have two panel discussions where we are having some of the very same organizations discuss and talk about what their organization is doing across the disaster, risk reduction forum or what we call the spectrum."
"We also asked a fourth form student for his thoughts and concerns on some of today's topics:"
"My Belizean studies said that there was going to be a NEMO function here and it sounded interesting about disaster risk because it was a topic that we were learning with the UN and all of that so I signed up for it and now I'm here so."
"One thing of interest is I wonder how they would be able to like because disaster reduction is trying to reduce the risk of things happening, but things like hurricanes and natural disasters. How would they try to prevent them from coming and things like that because you can't really control the weather so that is one of my curiosities."
Reporter:
"Is there anything that you have learned from the discussions that have taken place so far?"
Asher Julien, Eden SDA High school Student
"Yes, about the UN General Assembly and how they made, I forgot the name of it a place in Japan where they have the conference for the same meeting that's going on in there."
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