How does Qatar Deals with Earthquakes

Background

In the past several decades, Qatar has been included the low probability expectation from any major naturally-occurring incidents like earthquakes, floods, droughts or heavy storms. A United Nations report published ranked the country as among the world's safest.

An earthquake is a sudden, rapid shaking of the earth caused by the shifting of rock beneath the earth's surface. They strike without warning, at any time of year, day or night. 

One of the most significant consequences of both natural and human-induced disasters is impacts. They have at schools as it is often one of the first activities abandoned when disasters occur. Children spend up to 50% of their waking hours in educational facilities. Children and adult's death in schools cause irreplaceable losses to families, communities and countries. Millions of children also suffer lifelong injuries and disabilities through disasters.

Experiencing with the earthquake happened in other country left many victims. Most of them are elderly and children. Not all children are trained to deal with disaster, therefore it is necessary to conduct an exercise elementary school so the students have a knowledge about dealing with disaster if it is suddenly happened. 

In relation to the effort of managing disaster, the school has a tangible role in building community resilience. Schools, have to plan and commit in making effort to create a conducive learning atmosphere and process to enable the students to develop their potentials actively, and to express religious and spirituality, self-control, personality, intelligence, good morals, and skills needed for themselves, their communities, and country.

Pertaining to this, the school still gains trust as an effective institution to build the culture of disaster preparedness in societies, particularly among students, teachers, education practitioners, other stakeholders as well as to the public.

As an effort to build the school disaster preparedness, SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) is developed to raise awareness on DRR for all stakeholders in the education sector, both individually and collectively. Preparedness is a part of the effort to anticipate and manage disaster in order to reduce its impacts/risks. DRR mainstreaming into national education system becomes an approach in developing the SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) concept, which covers eight standards in accordance to the National Standard for Education.

Objective: This was not only because of Qatar's location away from disaster hotspots, but also due to its high state of preparedness in case of emergencies.

The main aims of this research are to find out the effect of disaster simulation method toward the children readiness

The purposes of this article are to describe:

• the preparedness plan for facing disaster, which should be properly implemented, particularly in its management.
• the problems that might be found in arranging the preparedness plan for facing disaster, such as: understanding of the steering committee officer, lack of supporter element, and not yet considered elements of the preparedness plan for facing disaster in arranging policies.
• the efforts that can be taken to overcome the problems in arranging the preparedness plan for facing earthquake in.

Conceptually the school-based disaster preparedness not only focuses on mere preparedness, but also strives to develop knowledge to institutionalize the culture of safety and resilience of all school communities to disaster. Therefore, the concept of SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) focuses on two agendas:

1. A safe Learning Environment.
2. Preparedness of the School Community.

The objective of SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) is to develop a culture of        preparedness and safety in school as well as resilience of school communities.

The disaster preparedness culture is an absolute requirement in establishing SDP (SCHOOLBASED   DISASTER PREPAREDNESS). It will be well organized if there is a supporting system, good planning process, procurement, and maintenance of the school means and infrastructure. The SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) concept developed by CDE is expected to provide a reference for DRR initiatives and community-based disaster management in general and school-based disaster management in particular

To measure the efforts made by schools in developing School based Disaster Preparedness, parameters, indicators and its verification need to be determined. Parameter is a minimum standard that is qualitative in nature and determines the minimum level that is needed to be achieved. Indicator is a ?marker' which shows whether standards have been achieved. It provides means to measure and communicate impact or outcome of a program, a process as well as the method used. Indicator can be qualitative or quantitative in nature. Verification is a set of evidence to show indicator. Parameter of school preparedness consists of four factors:

1. Attitude and Action
2. School Policy
3. Preparedness Planning
4. Resource Mobilization

3.1. Attitude and Action The basis of one's attitude and action is their perception, knowledge and skill. SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) expects to build the capacity of all elements of school communities, both individually and collectively, to face disasters promptly and efficiently. Therefore, students and all elements of school communities are the target of SDP (SCHOOLBASEDDISASTER PREPAREDNESS).

3.2. School Policy School policy is a formally binding decision made by schools on the matters needed to support the implementation of DRR in school, both specifically and integrated. In practice, the school's policy shall be the foundation, guideline, and direction for the implementation of activities relevant to DRR in school.

Preparedness Planning Preparedness planning is to ensure a rapid and efficient action when disaster occurs, taking into consideration the local disaster management system and adjusting it according to the local condition. It will produce several documents such as preparedness Standard Operating Procedure/SOP, contingency plan, and other supporting preparedness documents, including establishment of accurate early warning system that considers local context.

3.4. Resource Mobilization The school ought to prepare human resource, facility, infrastructure and financial support for disaster management to ensure the school's disaster preparedness. Resource mobilization is based on the capacity of school and school stakeholders. The mobilization is open for other stakeholders to take part.

The four parameters stated above are means to measure disaster preparedness in school, and each parameter is not a stand-alone one but linked to one another. The acquired measurement of the related schools will determine the level of school resiliency toward a specific hazard. In practice, school preparedness should also be integrated with same effort of local government, communities around the school and relevant stakeholders.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) requires collective efforts from various parties in accordance to their availability, capacity, knowledge and skill. The followings are possible basic roles that can be performed by each party (school elements, parents, and implementing institution, as well as donors):

What can students do?

• Students can take advantage of the PP and DRR training provided by non-governmental organizations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Furthermore, senior students are expected to be able to teach the younger ones.
• Students can inform their parents of what they have learned concerning hazards and risks.
• What can parents do?
• Parents can ask about school safety at the school board meeting. They may also lobby the government official concerning the resources necessary for the school safety.
• Parents may join other members of society to support their children in learning DRR and assisting in disseminating the risk assessment result to the community through participatory approach.
• Parents who lost their children during disaster at school may join associations or non-governmental organizations to prevent others from facing similar losses. There are different ways for parents who lost their children in organizing activities which contextually proper in the respective culture.
• Parents and teachers can discuss (through various forms of Parents and Teachers Associations) on. DRR materials, learned by students, about hazards and risk and how the school can be a safer place.

What can educators and other professionals do?

• The educators and professionals should enrich their knowledge on hazards, risk and how to implement disaster risk reduction.
• Educators can take the initiative to conduct learning session on disaster and its risk reduction i.e. on a weekly basis during school hours on a specific subject matter (geography, biology, etc) bringing the students out of the classroom to learn and identify the risk zones and draw the risk map in their school environment.

What can non-governmental, national, and international organizations do?

• In cooperation with professional, educator, children and/or community, the organizations could support in developing action plan to improve school safety and the level of risk awareness among the school communities.
• They can support the coalition and partnership among schools to build inter school network.
• They can develop and provide education materials

What can donors do?

• To ensure standard building code for safe school and disaster risk reduction in their support to school construction projects.
• To fund education projects for DRR.

SUPPORT FOR SUCCESS

In the effort for a successful DRR and SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) implementation aside from the school itself (commitment of the school principals and school elements), as well as the surrounding school communities, it is also important to have support from the government policy and resources, among others from the education office, BPBD and other organization working in DRR in the area.

Several CDE members have conducted SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) activities in several areas in Indonesia in the last couple of years. Based on their experiences, the following steps could be taken into consideration in developing SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS):

1. Building understanding and collective commitment among school elements and other stakeholders to establish SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS), with or without facilitation of external parties
2. Establishment of SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) Team
3. Drafting plan to develop SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS)
4. Developing school's roadmap to SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS)
5. Conduct analysis of threats, capacity, and vulnerability of the school
6. Perform risk analysis of the school on disaster
7. Create risk and school evacuation map
8. Develop SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) by formulating activities to improve the school resilience to disaster in accordance to the four parameters: attitude and action, school policy, preparedness planning, and resource mobilization (see chapter 3)
9. Monitor and evaluate SDP (SCHOOLBASED DISASTER PREPAREDNESS) implementation

Keywords: planning, preparedness, earthquake

Conclusion: The training of readiness to face an earthquake disaster increase the level of children awareness. All of the level elementary students are able and involved after the training was repeated 5 times and most of the children showed that the level of awareness is categorized as less ready.

Cite this page