Community-Based Disaster Preparedness (CBDP) Programme - Andhra Pradesh, India

In general terms, this programme is based on the notion that children can absorb and disseminate information to their parents and other community members, which in turn can lead to change. As one of the women, who is in her 20s, working with ACTION (a participating NGO) explains, "Children are part of society and should know about the disasters and the distress (cyclones cause). Right now they are kids, but as they grow up they will be able to use this knowledge and help others. The school training...began when, at a CADME meeting, people realised that men, women and youth were getting lessons in survival skills, but the children were being left out. They are the bedrock."

Children from the fifth standard onward are enticed to remain after school for the weekly 40-minute training sessions with the offer of sweets and a strategy that organisers call "learn while you play". The first lesson is about the importance of thinking straight and acting immediately after a cyclone warning has been broadcast on local radio. Safety pointers are discussed. For example: Do not set out to sea if the sea is rough; first take care of the elderly, pregnant women, small children and the disabled; evacuate low-lying areas; and attend to animals. The second session involves forming a warning and evacuation group. A team of between 8 and 10 older students are selected and trained. It is this group's responsibility to both broadcast cyclone warnings and news of impending danger to the surrounding villages and to instruct and guide people to move into cyclone shelters (thick circular buildings built to withstand cyclones). In these sessions, the NGO representatives teach the children various rescue methods that can be adopted, including using local material and simple strategies for rescue: "To cross a flooded area, tie a rope to two trees on either side of the area to help carry people over to safety. The simple tying of two pots at the ends of a bamboo stick forms a floating device. You need not run from pillar to post in search of a floating device, just use the local material available and save yourself."

To communicate this information, CADME personnel encourage the children to use play-acting. During the 'rescue' exercise, one student might play the part of an unconscious person - a friend will try to drag him or her by the feet; fellow students might laugh....organisers say that behind the fun is a serious issue (saving lives). In another class, children have fun while learning how to carry injured people. A young student may be taught how to carry a peer who is twice her size by 'cradle-carrying' him like a mother carrying her baby. Pointing to a male peer that she has carried, one girl laughs: "Who says a woman cannot carry a man's burden, literally or figuratively!" Encouraged by the praise she receives from her peers, this student is, organisers say, inspired to try out another strategy: making an improvised stretcher by folding a blanket between two bamboo sticks. The idea is that these children will share their experiences at these "fun" training sessions with their parents, thereby exchanging potentially life-saving information.

Other lessons focus on first aid (children practise bandaging each other), artificial respiration ("Girls and boys hesitate to act in front of each other. So we make the girls do it to girls and the boys to boys."), and the 'disaster drill' (children are let loose on the beach and they imitate a cyclone situation where some children need to be rescued from the sea, some are stuck in flooded areas, and others are screaming out from make-believe houses). The idea here is to provide action time as well as fun time. The children divide themselves into their respective teams to warn, build floating devices, rescue, treat the injured, and get others safely into cyclone shelters.

Children, Emergency.

Nine districts in coastal Andhra Pradesh experience severe cyclones. High winds, torrential rain, and floods can devastate the lives and livelihoods of people living there.