Booklet 02 Educators Guidebook

8/6/2019 Booklet 02 Educators Guidebook

1/76


2/76

2

Introduction

Make Yourself Ready Educational Package

Who made this booklet?

This booklet was made as part of a Master Thesis for the Technical University of

Delft, in the Netherlands. It was an assignment from a Product Design student

and was completed in August 2010. This project was supervised by Professors

Iemkje Ruiter and Henk Kuipers and was supported by Ir. Lard Breebaart from

Lard Design.

Contact information

Author: Joo Rocha

E-mail address: [email protected]

Project Client: Ir. Lard Breebaart

E-mail address: XX to be disclosed XX

URL: XX to be disclosed XX

Project Mentor: Prof. Henk Kuipers


Chair Professor: Prof. Iemkje Ruiter


University Information

Name: Technische Universiteit Delft

URL: http://home.tudelft.nl/en/

Address:

Postbus 5

2600 AA Delft

The Netherlands

Faculty Information

Name: Faculteit Industrieel OntwerpenURL: http://io.home.tudelft.nl/en/

Address:

Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering

Landbergstraat 15

2628 CE Delft

E-mail Address: [email protected]

Tel: 015 278 4750

Fax: 015 278 73 16

Delft, 2010


3/76

Make Yourself Ready - Educators Guidebook

3

Table o ContentsThese are the sections in this book

page 5A. IntroductionA short explanation of what is this booklet, what is Disaster Preparedness and

which things will you teach

7 What is this booklet?

8 What is Disaster Preparedness?

10 What things will I teach?

page 11

B. MethodA description of what is the recommended way to organize education activities in

your community.13 What will be my roles?

16 What method should I follow?

20 What are the conditions for a good project?

page 23

C. Disaster PreparednessBasic information about Disaster Preparedness, how to do it and how to convince

others to do it.

25 Introduction

28 How can families prepare for Disaster?31 What products to get?

33 What plans to make?

34 How to stay informed?

35 How to convince people to prepare for Disaster?

page 37

D. EducationBasic information on how education happens and what inuences its process

39 Introduction

41 What matters in teaching/learning?

46 How do people learn?

page 51

E. Your CommunityInstructions on how to study your community to get useful information to adapt

the Disaster Preparedness teaching activities you will plan.

53 Introduction

55 How do I study my Community?

58 How is my local Culture?

62 What are the local Education Conditions?

64 What tools do I use?


4/76

4

Introduction



5/76

IntroductionWhat is this booklet, what is thisProject about, what is DisasterPreparedness and what you willteach.

A


6/76

6

Introduction



7/76

7

Introduction


What is this booklet?This booklet is a source of information for people that are interested in

teaching Disaster Preparedness to their community or a community they

are familiar with. It gives an overview of what is Disaster Preparadness

and how to achieve it and also explains how should a person teach Di-saster Preparedness techniques to his or her community.

Why do I need this booklet?

If you have this book, we assume that you also have the original Make Yourself

Ready, which contains practical advice for Disaster Preparedness techniques.

This Educators Guidebook has a different type of information, it teaches people

how to teach Disaster Preparedness.

If you live in an area that is frequently exposed to Natural Disaster (e.g. Flood,

Hurricane, Landslide, Earthquake, Storm, etc) it is possible that you are affectedsomeday. Maybe you have even already been affected. Proper knowledge about

Disaster Preparedness can reduce your risks and the risks of your community.

For people to start working on their Disaster Preparedness, it is not enough to

give them instructions on how to make things. It is necessary to help and moti-

vate them. In this booklet, you can learn methods to teach and encourage people

to work for their own Disaster Preparedness.

For who is this booklet?

This guidebook was designed to be used by normal people, not specialists,

that are familiar with a community that is often victim of Natural Disaster. You can

start using the knowledge in this book right away, without being a social worker,an educator, scientist or designer. It was made for simple and exible use.

All the techniques that you will nd in this guide were selected based on their

simplicity and low cost. This is because if something is possible to be made or

bought with very low effort, more people will be able to use it.

As the name suggests, this book is for Educators, but it does not mean that you

must be a school teacher to teach people about Disaster Preparedness. No mat-

ter what your job is, if you want to teach Disaster Preparedness to the commu-

nity, this booklet will be useful for you.

A1.


8/76

8

Introduction


What is DisasterPreparedness?Disaster Preparedness is the continuous preparation for a possibleDisaster, before the Disaster happens. It can save lives and reduce the

damage that Disasters causes

Can we avoid Disasters?

Yes. One important thing about Disasters is that with preparation and some

luck, their worst effects can be reduced. Storms or Earthquakes, for example, are

common Disasters, but if we learn how to prepare for them, then their destruction

will be less strong and less people will suffer.

Imagine that very strong winds reach two different villages. One has good houses

and people know what to do during a storm, while the other village has fragilehouses and people dont know what to do during a storm. As you can imagine, it

is the less prepared village that gets the worse effects.

We cannot avoid most of the causes of Disaster

(e.g. Wind, Rain, etc), but if we prepare for those causes, the

caused damages will be lower and people will be less affected.

Why should people prepare or Disasters?

Disasters can be very destructive to people and things and it is very common that

after a Disaster, people are harmed and buildings are damaged.Preparing for Disasters gives people the tools to reduce their risks and to return

to normal life faster. Prepared people can x their broken homes or make tem-

porary homes, cook, drink safe water and learn more what kind of help will come

(e.g. Civil protection, remen, police, army, foreign aid).

If people are prepared for Disasters, when Disasters happen,

less people get injuried and less houses are destroyed. When

people prepare for Disasters, their lives return faster to normal.

How to prepare or Disasters?Preparing for Disasters can be a lot of things, from xing fragile houses to plan-

ning for how public services recover after a Disaster takes place. These things

seem complex, but there are other steps that a family, neighbourhood or commu-

nity can take to prepare for Disaster.

These are things you can start doing today:

Stock up on Supplies (e.g. Food, Water, Medicine)

Make a Plan (how to reunite the family or how to rebuild)

Stay Informed (what Disaster risks are out there and what should you doin case of one)

These three actions will be explained in detail in section C, Disaster Prepared-

A2.


9/76

9

Introduction


ness

Why is dicult to Prepare or Disasters?

In most cases, people do not prepare correctly for a Disaster and it is possible

that this is happening in your community. Especially if people are generally poor

or have little access to education, it is very likely that they have not prepared.

This is a common situation but can be improved.

For people to prepare, they have to recognize that a Disaster is possible and

there is something that can be done about it. Depending on the Culture of your

community, people might have an opinion that Disasters are certain facts of life

and there is nothing you can do about them. Convincing people that it is possible

to prepare for Disaster will require a lot of sensibility to their cultural values and

beliefs and should be approached carefully.

More on this topic can be found on chapter C, Disaster Preparedness.

For people to prepare, they must also see the value in Preparation. If your com-

munity does not think that preparing for Disaster has any advantage, people will

not do it.

Finally, people must know what to do to prepare, and it this is information that you

will nd on this guide book.

Disaster Preparedness is difcult because it needs people to understand that it is

possible to reduce Disaster impact. Also, even if people understand and accept

that they can prepare for Disaster, Disaster Preparedness is complicated and

expensive.

Although it can be difcult, Preparing for Disaster saves lives,

time and money.

How can I help my community preparing or Disasters?

The best way for you to help your community is to show it the advantages of pre-

paring for a Disaster and teach how can people prepare. Make Yourself Ready

contains a lot of information but your community will need someone to help it

access this information. It is not enough to give or lend Make Yourself Ready to

people, even if they can read. This is why it is necessary to have a responsible

person (or persons) that can take the information in this book and use it to edu-

cate the community.

More information on section B, Method.


10/76

10

Introduction


What things will Iteach?To get your community ready for Disaster you should teach it some basicknowledge about Disaster Preparedness and also the techniques listed in

the booklet Make Yourself Ready.

The basics o Disaster Preparedness

Disaster Preparedness can be a vast eld, but we tried to simplify it in this

booklet and Make Yourself Ready, so it becomes more accessible and easy to

teach/learn. We wrote both booklets so they can be an introduction to people that

habe no notions of Disaster Preparedness.

There are some basics of Disaster Preparedness that everybody should know.

These are included in this booklet. Knowing these basic notions is a good startfor people to begin working for their own Disaster Preparedness.

Disaster Preparedness is more than having some products, it also needs people

to know some behaviours that are important in case of Disaster. These are in-

cluded in the Basic Disaster Preparedness taught here.

Clearly, it is good to learn more about Disaster Preparedness, and so we in-

cluded details on how can you nd more information on the topic. Look for the

side bars, as the one on the left. There is also more available info on section C,

Disaster Preparedness.

Techniques to make useul products or Disaster Preparedness

Besides teaching people what simple behaviours they should have to be pre-pared for Disaster, you will also teach them how to make products and tech-

niques that are useful for Disaster Preparedness. These are:

Shelter or improvised housing

Water treatment knowledge

Cooking conditions

Communication devices

The best type of knowledge allows for adaptation and is useful in several situ-

ations. In this guidebook, an effort was made to suggest techniques that aresimple, yet useful enough to be adaptable. Also, they are exible and you might

nd them useful in normal situations.

If while learning Disaster Preparedness, people also learn useful information for

their daily lives, it is likely that those persons will be more inclined to learn the

Disaster Preparedness techniques.

Disaster Preparedness information is more valuable if it helps

people even without a Disaster.

Useful Information

International Federa-tion o the Red Crossand Red CrescentSocieties:

DisasterManagementresources

http://www.ifrc.org/

what/disasters/re-

sources/publications.

asp#dp

San FranciscoDepartment oEmergencyManagement:

72 hours, are youprepared?

http://72hours.org/


11/76

MethodWhat roles should you have, what isthe general method to follow,creating good conditions to run aproject

B


12/76

12

Introduction



13/76

13

Introduction


What will be my roles?To teach Disaster Preparedness in your community might be more than

just transmit the knowledge in these books. We believe that for this

teaching to be effective, you must adapt the contents (e.g. the tech-

niques) and the methods (e.g. the procedures) we suggest. This meansthat your role, your job, will probably be more than teaching and will

involve other tasks.

What kind o tasks can I expect to do?

We assume that you will be involved with the creation and management of the

education initiatives. This will require you to be quite versatile and you will take

on many roles. Naturally, these roles might change with the circumstances, but

the following list is what you can expect from a project list this:

Act as an Intermediary

Get support

Manage people

Observe

Plan

Supervise

Motivate

Teach

This list does not mean that you will have to do all this things at the same time,but it is likely that at some point or another you will do them. Also, as you can see

from the list, most of these roles involve your interaction with other people

(e.g. be an intermediary between the book and the people, motivate your cowork-

ers).

Act as an intermediary

In your educational project you will start by making the connection between this

book and your community. You learn the things in this book and then apply them

in your community, with your people.

Probably, you will also be an intermediary between people, as the project pro-

gresses (e.g. introducing people to each other and asking the help of importantpeople in your community).

Acting as an intermediary will require good social skills and a good standing in

the community

Get support

Getting support is a little like being an intermediate. In fact in some cases, you

will be getting support from other people, as you act as an intermediary.

Getting support, help or assistance from other people is a work of persuasion.

You will need to convince people of the benets of their contribution to the proj -

ect. An example: convince a public ofcial to help the education efforts by lending

some resources, by showing how the community can benet and the governmentmight save money on Disaster recovery in the future.

B1.


14/76

14

Introduction


Manage people

A project like the teaching of Disaster Preparedness to a community will involve a

lot of people. These people will be involved in different tasks and different groups.

You will notice that not everybody is motivated in the same way or that people do

things in ways that you did not expect.

You will also have to organize people into teams, give them tasks and make sure

they are ready for the job.

The point is that you will need to carefully make sure people are working well,

and having a productive relationship with their colleagues. You must be careful to

do this in a way that makes sense in your culture. Managing people in a country

is different from managing people in another country.

Because it is difcult to give you advise that will certainly work in your commu-

nity, we suggest you pay attention (and maybe even ask for help) to the people

in your community that are known for being good at managing people (e.g. shop

owners, religious and civic leaders, teachers, doctors, etc.)

Observe

Just because this project will probably have the cooperation of many people, it

does not mean that you will only do management work. If you are reading this

booklet, it is probable that you have skills that are very useful besides manage-

ment.

Observing your community, paying attention to the way people do things, pos-

sible sources of danger or possibilities for improvement, is an important task.

Especially in the beginning of this project, you can expect to do a bit of this for

initial research.

Plan

By having access to this booklet, we can already assume that you have some

prior capacity for planning and management. We expect that with our sugges-

tions, you become even more capable of planning activities.

Planning will require someone that has an overview of all the participants in the

project (which to educate your community about Disaster Preparedness). As the

responsible for this Disaster Preparedness education project, you are in a good

position for this. Expect to be responsible for the planning of activities.

Supervise

When the project is already running and people are researching, planning, mak-

ing things and teaching people, you still have to be alert for possible problems

that come up.

Your role as a supervisor is to observe people working, pay attention to their

needs (e.g. A team member that tells you he/she needs a some tool ) and to cre-

ate a working environment where people know that what they are doing matters.

There are many styles of supervision, where some people prefer a very close

watch on all the activities and other managers prefer a more free way of super-

vising. This all depends on your culture and you.

Motivate

Especially with long projects, that take a lot of time before results are shown,

people tend to lose motivation. People might get tired of working on a project

that is difcult and is taking too much time to show results. Because a Disaster

Preparedness education effort will take a long time before people are actually

prepared, you should expect your coworkers to start losing motivation.

Because people work much better when they are motivated, you should know

how to motivate your team workers.


15/76

15

Introduction


Some people are naturally better than others at this, but motivation to work is

different for different cultures. The best way to understand what better motivates

people in your community is to pay attention to what people around you nd

important and worth working for (e.g. The welfare of the family, the success of the

crops, the keeping of traditions, etc)

TeachFinally, after all the project management activities that were previously described,

it is probable that you will be responsible (in some way) for teaching people about

Disaster Preparedness. Even if you are not the actual person that will teach the

practical advice to your community, while you explain the project to your collabo-

rators, you will be in a position of teaching.

There is also the possibility that you end up being the person that teaches the

techniques described in Make Yourself Ready and the general Disaster Pre-

paredness advice contained in this booklet.


16/76

16

Introduction


What method should Iollow?Teaching Disaster Preparedness is a complex task. Although you are freeto plan and organize your efforts in any way you find appropriate, it is

suggested to follow some specific method. In this section you will learn

our suggested method.

5 steps

We suggest you follow one working method that considers 5 general steps in

establishing this educational effort. These steps are more useful if you use them

together and in order.

These steps are:

Prepare

Research

Plan

Make

Educate

B2.


17/76

17

Introduction


Prepare

This is the very rst step in starting any project. In this step you should compare

what you have to work with (e.g. How much money, which kind of team, working

spaces, time) with what you will need.

It is also in this step that you set up your working group, get the support of the

community and set up the objectives and time limits of the project.

Questions you should ask yourself:

What are the Disaster risks in this community?

Who do I want to teach? (consult section D, Education)

What is my objective for this Disaster Preparedness education project?

What resources do I have? (e.g. collaborators, funding, material, working

space and time)

Who can help me? (consult section Managing a good project, in this

chapter)

The idea of these questions is to understand your objectives for this project and

what do you have at your disposal to full them. It is important to have clear

objectives because they help you make sure you are working in a good direction.

When the project is already running, in the future, you can compare your current

status to what you dened as objectives.

An example: Imagine that in the beginning of the project, you dened that in 3

weeks, you want to teach 50 people about the techniques explained in Making

Yourself Ready. But, because unexpected things come up (e.g. collaborators

give up, money is spent, etc) you loose focus on your objectives. If you do not

have clearly stated objectives, it is very easy to let guard down and stop pro-

gressing.

Research

This book has a lot of information, but it does not know you or the people you will

be teaching. Because of this, the educational information you nd here must be

adapted for your culture.

To adapt our information to your needs, you will need to conduct a quick research

on your community. With this research you will be able to understand what pieces

this book can be adapted to be more useful for you.

Another advantage of research, is that you will be more in touch with the needs

of your community. You might even realize that there are other problems that can

benet from your educational efforts.

Questions you should ask yourself:

How prepared for Disaster are the people in the community?

If people are little prepared, why is that? (compare with information on

section C, Disaster Preparedness)

What educational facilities are available? (e.g. schools, religious centers,

town hall meetings)

How can I best teach the people from my community? (consult section E,

How is your Community)


18/76

18

Introduction


Plan

After conducting research on your community, you will understand much better

how specic it is and what are its needs. At this point, you can use this informa-

tion to adapt the techniques you nd in this book.

You can plan what subjects you will teach, to whom, how, when and with which

methods.

Things you should plan for:

Adenitiveperiodfortheproject

What are the roles of the several collaborators

How to keep track of the project progress

What are the phases of the project and their periods (check part B2)

How to increase interest for Disaster Preparedness in the population

How to use the available spaces and tools

Make

When people learn, they usually need products that help their learning. An

example: a person learning how to read will learn better if he/she has a book to

practice.

When learning about Disaster Preparedness, people can learn better with educa-

tional material that teaches and reminds them of the skills they learn.

In this step, Make, we suggest you some points on how to create your own

educational material to aid classes.

Things you should consider when making new educational material:

What means of communication can people understand?

Can people read

Do people prefer to learn through more humane stories or more accurate

facts?

Do people understand sequential images? (e.g. like a comic strip)

What direction people read from? (e.g. from left to right and up to down

or in some other way?)

Are there taboos in representing people and gestures?

How do people tell stories?

For more information on this, we suggest you consult the excellent document

How to improve the use of medicines by consumers, from World Health Orga-

nization. The document has a focus on medical care, but is mostly devoted to

explaining what communication methods are best and how to elaborate them. It

is listed on the left, and is free to download and copy.

You can, naturally, adapt the instructions from Make Yourself Ready. In fact,

maybe you need to, as some people might not understand them correctly. If you

do so, remember the previously listed considerations.

Useful Information

World Health Organi-zation -How to improve theuse o medicines byconsumers

Available at:

http://www.who.int/

medicines/publica-

tions/WHO_PSM_

PAR_2007.2.pdf


19/76

19

Introduction


EducateThis is the nal step, where people learn the suggested Disaster Preparedness

skills and test their knowledge on the topic. In this case, Educate is more than

just teaching the students. We strongly recommend that you test their success,

by giving them opportunities to test their new skills.

When teaching people, we assume the previous phases are already completed.

You should take care to:

Plan each lesson, so you know exactly what you want to teach, how

much time you need, what materials do you need and how many people will

you teach.

Pay attention to see if people are following what you are teaching, and

understanding

Teach in an appropriate way ( consult section D, Education

Make sure that all students have a fair opportunity to learn, by paying

moreattentiontothosethathavemoredifculties.

Motivate all students.

Teaching is not always a straightforward thing and it is too complex to be ex-

plained in such a simplied document. The suggested points of interest should be

able to help you, but if you can ask the advice of other more experienced people,

you should do so.

In addition, you can consult the information available at the International Network

for Education in Emergencies (INEE). This might be a little bit more technical, but

is a resource worth consulting. It gives advice on how to plan education efforts

and it is listed on the left.

Using what you have learnedDepending on your intentions, your educational efforts can stop at the end of the

5 steps, but they can also be a continuous process. If you prefer to do the edu-

cational initiative as a repeating event, you can always improve on the method

presented in this chapter, making it more appropriate to the new things you have

learned.

You will realize that you will gain experience with each step of the process, and if

you repeat your efforts, you will be more prepared.

Useful Information

International Net-work or Education inEmergencies -Resources

Available at:

http://www.ineesite.

org/index.php/re-

sourcedb/


20/76

20

Introduction


What are the conditionsor a good project?The success of your efforts in educating your community depends onmany things. Hard work and motivation are the minimum, but follow this

advice to increase your chances of getting a good result.

A good project needs good conditions.

If you decide on starting a project to teach Disaster Preparedness and tech-

niques to make Disaster Preparedness supplies, it will be a challenge. You will

face unpredicted situations and things will not always go according to the plan.

Luckily, there are a few things you can do that can create conditions for a good

project:

Involve the Community and get the right people in your team

Set a place to work at

Set a time limit

These conditions are mostly important for theplanningof the educational activi-

ties. For more good advice on important factors for such a project, try to consult

the IDEO Human Centered Design Tool Kit. IDEO is an innovation and design

rm that is focused on helping businesses and organizations by using design

methods to solve problems of all kinds, including education and society.

Involve the Community and get the right people in your teamIf you see the advantage in Preparing for Disaster, it is likely that other people in

your community have already though about that. Maybe they achieved some

success, but it also may be that there is still work to be done. In any case, when

you work in the right team, the results are usually better than if you work alone.

There are a few characteristics of a good team:

People are motivated and passionate about the issues to solve

The team members have diverse expertise (different jobs, genders, ages,

etc)

Teamrolesareclearanddened

Teaching your community about something that can be complex (like Disaster

Preparedness) will require a lot of effort. Working in a good team is the rst step

to make sure that you can deal with the numerous problems that will appear. But

not any team will be useful, you need people that are willing to invest time and

effort in taking the education project forward.

Goodwill is important, but only hard-working teams will reach good results.

When you look at a problem alone, you will not have the valuable constant com-

mentaries of people that look at the problem from other points of view. On the

other hand, when different people try to solve the same problem together, they

will reach different and often innovative solutions. This diversity can be in terms

of peoples jobs, gender, socioeconomic status or religion. If you can make agood mixed group that works well, it is worth it.

Include people from different backgrounds in your team and you will be

surprised at the original and adequate solutions you will reach.

Useful Information

IDEO -Human CenteredDesign Tool Kit

Available at:

http://www.ideo.com/

work/item/human-

centered-design-

toolkit/

B3.


21/76

21

Introduction


In team sports, even when all players are good, the coach is very important. In

teamwork the same happens. A good group has a structure and clearly dened

roles. If someone is very good at motivating others to work, that person should

be responsible for directing the team. Deciding what roles people occupy is an

important step in making a group. It is always better if people either choose or

are assigned roles that they believe t with their capabilities.

Get a place to work at

Running this education project can help your community immensely, but it will

also involve a lot of work. To make sure your team can do its best, it is important

to create the right conditions for work. If you have a good team, made from the

community, you already have some support from those around you.

Getting a dedicated place to work out the details of this project will help you to

keep focused, have a productive environment and keep your work organized. If

you have a designated place to work at, you can immerse yourself in inspirational

images, notes and records.

Another advantage of having a working place is that people might take your task

more seriously and might even come up to you with ideas or comments. Any ofthese comments from those around you are very valuable and will motivate you

to work better.

A place to work will make you work more efciently and lend credibility to

your efforts

Set clear goals and time limits

When we work on an open or complex project, it is easy to loose control of time

and start delay the nish of a project. Having a time limit (a deadline) and

respecting it helps you in staying motivated and productive during the whole

process. Without some time pressure, we can get too comfortable and avoid tak-

ing difcult decisions. The nal goal of this project is to educate your community

about Disaster Preparedness and many tasks have to be done for that. If these

tasks are not nished, people will not receive the benet of this Disaster Pre -

paredness.

Having a limited amount of time forces you to work efciently and achieve

results faster.


22/76

22

Introduction



23/76

Disaster PreparednessDisaster Preparedness for the Familyand how to convince people to pre-pare for Disaster

C


24/76

24

Introduction



25/76

25

Introduction


IntroductionTo teach people how to prepare for Disaster, it is necessary to teach

them some basics of Disaster Preparedness theory. This chapter outlines

the basic notions that are important for Disaster Preparedness.

What can we do to reduce Disasters?

A very important fact about Natural Disasters is that we cannot change their ori-

gins (e.g. we cannot stop a Storm), but we can change their effect. This was al-

ready mentioned in the introduction of this document in section A, Introduction.

The people that are professionally involved in dealing with Disasters (e.g. Police,

Firemen, Civil Protection and so on), consider that we can reduce Disasters by

doing different things before and after the Disaster. In ofcial terms, this is called

the Disaster Management Cycle.

This Disaster Management Cycle has four phases:

Mitigation

Preparedness

Response

Recovery

Most organizations follow this model or models that are similar to it. The mostimportant characteristics are the cyclic nature of this model, that repeats itself

and the assumption that there are things we can do before a Disaster, to reduce

its impact.

C1.


26/76

26

Introduction


The Disaster Management phases

The four phases in Disaster Management are divided in pre-Disaster and post-

Disaster. Mitigation and Preparedness happen before a Disaster and Re-

sponse and Recovery take place after.

Most times, it is much more efcient (and cheaper) to reduce Disaster damage,

by preparing before it rather than by having better Disaster Response. When you

prepare for Disaster, you remove some of the dangers so that no less damagewill be created. If there is less created damage, one needs less Disaster Re-

sponse.

The United Nations estimates that 1 dollar invested in Disaster

Mitigation and Preparedness can save up to 5 in Response and

Recovery.

Mitigation

Disaster Mitigation efforts must start much before the Disaster (weeks, months,

years, preferably) and their objective is the removing of dangers. This can meanthings like building houses in more protected places or the creation of regulation

that does not let people build houses in dangerous areas.

Disaster Mitigation can reduce Disaster risk a lot, by it takes a long time and

need a lot of cooperation between people, the government and private compa-

nies. Because it is so difcult and its benets can only be observed if a Disaster

happens, Disaster Mitigation is often neglected.

Preparedness

Disaster Preparedness is a preparation for Disaster that is focused in getting peo-

ple ready to survive during and after a Disaster. Disaster Preparedness, unlike

Disaster Mitigation, will not remove dangers (e.g. poor construction of houses),but will equip people so they can better survive.

Disaster Preparedness is very related with the acquisition of products that people

can use after a Disaster. This is why the book Make Yourself Ready has instruc-

tions to show to build useful products.

An advantage of Disaster Preparedness is that each person can take care of his/

her own, independently without approval or effort from government. An example:

If a person wants to prepare for Disaster, that person just has to follow the steps

in this manual and Make Yourself Ready. But if a person, a civilian, wants to

change the quality of the houses of the people in his/her city, it is much more dif-

cult.

Preparedness is not one single thing that you can do once and consider yourselfprepared, Preparedness should not stop until it is needed. Please consult the

present section, attentively, to learn more about what to do, for Disaster Pre-

paredness.


27/76

27

Introduction


Response

When a Disaster has already happened, the rst priority is to help the people

that might be hurt or trapped. Ambulances and Firemen are often used in the

Response phase. In this phase, the damage has already been created and it is

necessary to limit the destruction. People should be rescued before they perish

and buildings emptied before they fall.

Response has to be fast and capable, and its quality and effectiveness depends

a lot on how prepared are the people working on it (e.g. if the Firemen are well

trained before a Disaster, when the Disaster happens, they will be more ready)

After a Disaster, most people are rescued by their neighbors or family, but it is

necessary that there are specialized people (e.g. Firemen) that can save trapped

people in unexpected circumstances.

Because of this need for speed and high capability, Response is very expensive.

Recovery

After a Disaster has happened and the people have been rescued and taken care

of, it is necessary to rebuild the affected area. To this phase we call Recovery.The Recovery phase can last for a very long time (e.g. even years) and should

make sure that the community returns to a normal (perhaps even improved) con-

dition. This means the reconstruction of houses, working places, farms, govern-

ment buildings, basic infrastructure and so on.

The Recovery phase is very important to make sure that some past mistakes are

avoided. If an Earthquake was very destructive because most houses were of a

poor quality, it is necessary to make better houses, this time.

Because Disaster Management is circular, Recovery and Mitigation often overlap

at this point.

Preparedness is available to amiliesFrom all the four main things people can make, it is clear that most are beyond

the reach of families and must be managed by the local government or with

external help. Mitigation requires plenty of time, resources and political power;

Response requires technical expertise and advanced equipment and Recovery

needs virtually the same as Mitigation.

Preparedness is then, the only one that is available to families. It requires some

training and effort, but because it is accessible, it can be achieved by families.

Families that are prepared are better equipped and informed on what to do and

how to do it, should a Disaster happen.

This increased preparation is good not only for the people that are prepared, but

also for those who provide assistance. When assistance providers know thatpeople are somehow equipped to face Disaster, they can focus their efforts in

helping the people that need it the most.


28/76

28

Introduction


How can amiliesprepare or Disaster?Disaster Preparedness is to be ready for Disaster and its consequences.Disaster Preparedness for families is focused on the creation of conditions

for survival and reunification of people that were separated when the

Disaster struck.

The whole amily must participate

Disaster Preparedness is for the whole family and everybody in the family, includ-

ing women and children, should learn the principles of Disaster Preparedness

and what to do in case of Disaster.

Naturally, some activities in Disaster Preparedness are not appropriate or safe for

children (e.g. building the stove described in the book Making Yourself Ready).We recommend that you pay attention to what kind of tasks and chores children

in your community do, and adapt what dangerous techniques you teach. to them.

Preparation must be continuous

Disaster Preparedness, ideally, should be continuous until a Disaster happens. If

you only do some Disaster Preparedness activities once, you risk not being ready

when the Disaster happens.

If you acquire some material for a Disaster Preparedness Kit (as suggested

in Make Yourself Ready) and then do not make sure the material is in good

condition, it is possible that when a Disaster happens and you need you Disaster

Preparedness Kit, it will not be in good condition.

To be sure that you and your family are prepared for Disaster, you must follow

Disaster Preparedness methods continuously, until you need it.

Disaster Preparedness has 3 areas

Disaster Preparedness is continuous and, for families, it has 3 phases. These

phases are:

Get equipment (a Disaster Preparedness Kit)

Make plans

Stay informed

The rst step, Get Equipment is one that can be mostly done once. Once peo-

ple have their supplies (e.g. the described products in Make Yourself Ready),

there is no need to do it again. But in the two other areas, a continuous attention

to Disaster Preparedness is necessary.

C2.


29/76

29

Introduction


Get equipment

After a Disaster, peoples homes and possessions are often damaged or de-

stroyed. It is common that the most basic products are not available (e.g. hous-

ing, clothing, tools, etc). People without these and other basic products endure

difcult situations that can even be dangerous.

if the main characteristic of Disasters is the destruction of homes and posses-

sions, to be ready, people must have spare products. At least the kind of products

that are essential for survival, such as shelter, cooking conditions and water treat-

ment. Useful additions are rst aid and radios, for example.

In this book and Make Yourself Ready, we suggest that you can start your

Disaster Preparedness Kit in a very basic and cheap way. To do this, we suggest

that some things in a Disaster Preparedness Kit are more important than others.

We consider that the following products and knowledge are essential for you and

your familys survival after a Disaster:

Shelter

Cooking Stove

Material to treat water

Radios

Using the book Make Yourself Ready, people can learn how to make or acquire

these things. If they do so, we are condent that they have already improved their

chances of having sufcient living conditions after a possible Disaster

But these are the minimum, a good start. There are other things that are recom-

mended for people to have. Please consult parts C3, C4 and C5 of this docu-

ment.

As you can imagine , there are a lot of products that can be useful after a Disas-ter. Having them all is expensive and requires work, but can really help people

that are affected by a Disaster.

When you have things that can perish (e.g. Food or Medicine supplies), you must

pay attention to their expiry dates and replace them before they become unus-

able. Otherwise it might happen that when you need them the most, you realize

they are too old or not good anymore. This means that you need to take care of

you Disaster Preparedness Kit continuously.

Consult part C3 of this chapter to know more about this.

Useful Information

International Federa-tion o the Red Crossand Red CrescentSocieties:

DisasterManagementresources

http://www.ifrc.org/

what/disasters/re-

sources/publications.

asp#dp

San FranciscoDepartment oEmergencyManagement:

72 hours, are youprepared?

http://72hours.org/


30/76

30

Introduction


Make plans

People never know when and where will a Disaster happen, it might happen dur-

ing the night, it might happen when people are at work or it might happen at any

other time of the day. It is very possible that a Disaster happens when the family

is not together (e.g. children in school, parents at work).

Also, after a Disaster, communication services tend to stop working because of

too much people using them. Transports might also be halted and people are left

separated.

In these situations, it is very important to have plans, made before the Disaster,

that people can follow, even without talking to each other.

It is useful to have several different plans for different situations and to make sure

everybody knows the plans. This might need that people practice the execution

of the emergency plans several times

Consult part C4 of this chapter, to learn more about these

Stay informed

Not all Disasters give a warming, but some do. If people are informed (e.g. viaradio, loudspeaker, messenger or newspaper) about present Disaster Risks, they

can react to the Disasters faster and have better chances of evacuating or surviv-

ing the Disaster. This is an activity that people should do everyday, to make sure

it is possible for them to receive emergency information, in case of need.

Another way of staying informed is to always search for more information about

Disaster Preparedness, how to predict and survive Disasters

This is an area where radio can make a very good impact in peoples lives.

Consult part C5 of this chapter, to learn more about these


31/76

31

Introduction


What products to get?In this section, we present you a more complete list of Disaster Pre-

paredness supplies that people should try to acquire. Consider this as an

upgrade of the minimal Disaster Preparedness Kit that is suggested in

Make Yourself Ready.

Basic Disaster Preparedness Kit as recommended by the Red Cross

These are the things that Red Cross recommends people to have in case of

Disaster, regardless of the type of Disaster:

Water

(two liters per person, per day)

(3-day supply for evacuation, 2-week supply for home)

Food

(non-perishable)(easy-to-prepare items (3-day supply for evacuation, 2-week supply for home)

Manual can opener

Flashlight

Battery-powered or hand-crank radio

Extra batteries

First aid kit

Medications and medical items

(7-day supply)

Multipurpose tool

Sanitation and personal hygiene items

Copies of personal documents

(medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address,

deed/leasetohome,passports,birthcerticates,insurancepolicies)

Cell phone with chargers

Family and emergency contact information

Extra cash

Emergency blanket

Maps) of the area

Additional Disaster Preparedness Kit as recommended by the Red Cross

These are additional things that the Red Cross recommends people to have in

case of Disaster if there are special needs in the family (e.g. people with seeing

or hearing impairment, small children, elders and pets)

Medical supplies

(hearing aids with extra batteries, glasses, contact lenses, syringes, cane)

Baby supplies

(bottles, formula, baby food, diapers)

Games and activities for children

Pet supplies

(collar, leash, ID, food, carrier, bowl)

Extra set of car keys and house keys

C3.


32/76

32

Introduction


Reinorcement to Disaster Preparedness Kit as recommended by the RedCross

These items are recommended additions to reinforce peoples Disaster

Preparedness Kit to be ready to stay away from home for several days.

Whistle

N95 or surgical masks

Matches

Rain gear

Towels

Work gloves

Tools/supplies for securing your home

Extra clothing, hat and sturdy shoes

Plastic sheeting

(if dont already have it from Make Yourself Ready)Duct tape

Scissors

Household liquid bleach

(if dont already have it from Make Yourself Ready)

Blankets or sleeping bags


33/76

33

Introduction


What plans to makeHere you can see what sort of plans are recommended by the Red Cross

for families to make

Basic Planning Conditions

Before you start planning, it is recommended that people do the following:

Gather the whole family

Discuss how prepared the family is for a Disaster that can happen at

home, at school, at work and at play areas.

Identify responsibilities of each family member (e.g. one person is re-

sponsible for water, other for food, other for tools, etc.)

Basic Reunion Plan

After a Disaster, it is very possible that the family is separated. The most impor-

tant plan you must have is to reunite the family. This are the things you should

consider:

Meeting point for family near home

Meeting point for family outside the areas of living (e.g. outside city, or

away from the shore)

Write down contact information for all the family to have in case of Di-

saster

Evacuation Plan

It is possible that you family is forced to evacuate after a Disaster, leaving your

home and even community behind. For evacuation, you must consider the follow-

ing things:

Evacuation point (e.g. family house, friends house, assistance camp)

Evacuation route

Alternative Evacuation routes

C4.


34/76

34

Introduction


How to stay inormed?In this section, you can see how can you stay informed about Disasters

in your area and what to do about them.

Know where to get inormation

To get useful and reliable information, you must know what are the best sources

of information and what their information means

Identify how local authorities will notify you during a disaster and how

you will get information, whether through local radio, TV, loudspeakers, com-

munity alarms

Learn how to identify the different types of Disaster Alerts (e.g. Earth-

quake, Flood, Storm, etc) and what to do in case of each of them

Stay informed about learning opportunities in your community, so you

can educate yourself more about how to prepare for Disasters.

C5.


35/76

35

Introduction


How to convince peopleto prepare or Disaster?It is true that Disaster Preparedness is an efficient way of increasingones chances of survival, but it is also true that most people do not

prepare for Disaster (consult section A). To convince people to prepare

it is necessary to use the right motivation and to create conditions that

simplify the Preparedness efforts.

What do people need to prepare or Disaster?

Usually, people need three things to prepare for Disaster:

Awareness

Knowledge

Capability

Sometimes, people know that they are under a risk that could be avoided (they

are aware of the risk), but do not know how to avoid it (they do not have enough

Knowledge to change their situations). It might also happen that people do not

have the economic capability to prepare. In fact, people must have Information,

Awareness AND Capability, to prepare for Disaster

In this section, we suggest ways to make sure people have these things and so,

can Prepare for Disaster.

How to create Awareness?

To create awareness, you need people to realize that there exists a certain dan-

ger of Disaster and that they can avoid that Disaster, by taking action.

To show the possibility of Disaster, it might be pretty straightforward, in a place

that has an history of Disasters (e.g. like we suppose your community is). There

are many ways to show people that their community is in danger. You can take

people around the community to see old marks of destruction, you can ask the

elders in the community to tell stories (many people like personal stories, consult

section D, Education) or you can show numbers, simulations and predictions

from experts.

Your rst objective here is to make people realize that the area they live in is, atthe moment, dangerous.

Once people understand that they live in a dangerous area, you must make them

realize that they can change the conditions of their place, and then reduce Disas-

ter risk.

This second part might be more difcult, because in many cultures, people have

adopted a culture where man accepts life as it is and does not inuence destiny.

In these cultures, people sometimes think that death by Disaster is like fate, and

no matter what man does to change it, it always happens the way it was pre-

determined.

To break this mind set, you need to prove people that either their fate is not writ-

ten or that maybe it was also fate that brought you to them and allowed them toPrepare, survive and prosper. Naturally, this aspect of ones opinion on his/her

impact is very culturally dependent and you should use your common sense in

trying to change peoples minds.

C6.


36/76

36

Introduction


How to create knowledge?

For people to know what they need to prepare for Disaster, they need information

that is relevant and adapted to peoples learning ability. This information should

tell people what are the risks and how to prepare for them.

In this book and in Make Yourself Ready, we give you this sort of information.

Now it is necessary that you take this information and present it to your commu-

nity in a way that people can understand it.

The bulk of this book and Make Yourself Ready are precisely about having

available information and ways of making that information appropriate for teach-

ing.

When making this knowledge available, let people be comfortable in asking ques-

tions and searching for more information. By being generous with the information

you have, you create the feeling that it is OK to ask questions. This is good for

people, as they become engaged with the topic.

How to create capability?

Capability can be the economical capability of people but also other factors, liketheir previous level of instruction (if it is too low, maybe people have an harder

time to execute some tasks related with Disaster Preparedness.

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that you can improve the economical capability of

people, but there are things you can do, to lower the capability requirements of

Disaster Preparedness.

To start with, you can teach the techniques in Make Yourself Ready, that were

already simplied so they could be accessible to more people.

You can also organize group activities, where people share costs for materials

or you can request the aid of government or external institutions, to help in the

nancing of the Disaster Preparedness efforts of you and your community.

What tone to adopt when convincing people to prepare or Disaster?

You probably already realized that people often do not do things that are good

for them, like quitting drinking, washing hands before eating or using condoms.

People often do not do things that are good for them, not because their are lazy,

but because they do not see the benet in adopting those good practices.

In Disaster Preparedness the same happens. Many people do not see the point

in preparing for Disaster, so they do not do it. In the previous paragraphs, you

saw what are the basic conditions for people to prepare. But it is also important to

present Disasters in the right way, if you want people to feel compelled to act.

When talking about Disaster Preparedness, you should always explain the ad-

vantage of Disaster Preparedness like:

If you do some specic action, then you avoid some negative consequences.

An example:

If people make a Cooking Stove before a Disaster, they dont have to spend

much money on fuel, after a Disaster

People need specic instructions to take action. it is not enough to say that peo -

ple should prepare. For this reason, when you are teaching Disaster Prepared-

ness to your community, you should tell people the specic things they need todo, not some vague notion like (be prepared).

People are also more compelled to act if they think they are under risk, so it is

good to associate an action to the protection from some specic danger.


37/76

EducationA model for education andExperiential Learning TheoryD


38/76

38

Introduction



39/76

39

Introduction


IntroductionBefore teaching people about Disaster Preparedness, it is useful to learn a

bit about how learning takes place.

Because Education can be complicated, in this section you will find

information on how Education, Teaching and Learning happen and howcan you manage them.

What does Education mean?

You probably already have an idea of what Education is, but we felt that it would

be good if we made clear what is the denition of Education that is used in this

guidebook.

Education in it simplest form is an action (e.g. a school exercise) or experience

(e.g. listening to a teacher in class, training for sports) that leads to the develop-

ment of ones mind, body and character.

Another way of looking at Education is its place in a society. In a society, knowl-

edge, skills and moral values are transmitted from one generation to another

through education. This education does not need to be the ofcial type, with a

teacher, students and a school. An example: a father teaching his son how to do

a certain job, is educating that child.

For this project, Education will be the transfer of knowledge and skills from this

book and Make Yourself Ready, to you and from you to the people you will

teach.

Im not a teacher, can I teach?

Yes. The things you will teach to your community can be taught in a short timeand do not need a continued effort (as teaching mathematics does, for example).

Also, it is very likely that you have taught some sort of knowledge or skill to a

family member or a friend, even if not being a teacher.

If you are a teacher, you probably have quite some experience in educating peo-

ple. Naturally, this is an advantage and will probably help the teaching of Disaster

Preparedness and the technical skills for the making of supplies.

Who should we educate?

Everybody. It is common to think that Education is something for children and

happens in schools, with teachers and books, but Education can be more than

this.Education can involve adults, both Men and Women, just like it can be for chil-

dren.

Education activities must be planned and carried on in different ways depend-

ing on whether one wants to reach to children, women or men. Because each of

these groups is different and tends to have different interests and inuence, there

are also different advantages in teaching each of these groups.

Teaching children

Children are naturally curious and enthusiastic and might be very open to learn-

ing some of the skills presented in this guide. Also, if children are attending

school, they already have a routine of learning and participating in educationalactivities. In some cases, children going to school can be used as a way to reach

the families at home.

Children, on the other hand, require close supervision and educational materials

(e.g. posters, booklets, drawings) that suit their educational level.

D1.


40/76

40

Introduction


It should be noted that some activities (e.g. the fusing of plastic, cutting of metal

and making re) might present some hazards for the young ones. Children

should be protected and supervised, but it is also quite possible that in your com-

munity, children work or help their families in potentially dangerous activities. Use

your common sense in determining what activities children should and should not

take part in, and always supervise them.

Teaching men

In most societies, there are differences in status of men and of women. When

such differences exist, typically men have a position of authority and have the

responsibility of providing for the home. This might not be the specic case with

your community, but it is worth to pay attention that what are the roles of men and

women in your context.

Because of a generally higher status and the responsibility of providing for the

family, men can be hesitant in joining Education initiatives, if they conict with

their working routines and/or their status.

If you can get the interest and active participation of the men from the community,

your chances that people will actually use the Disaster Preparedness knowledgeyou gave them are much bigger.

Teaching women

Like previously said, in most societies, men and women do not occupy the same

place in the community. Traditionally, women have a sort of a soft power be-

cause even if they do not have an active voice in discussing important community

problems, they are in charge of the home nances. Also, women are usually in

charge of the education of children.

Because of their responsibilities and inuence on the whole household, women

are a very interesting group to teach.


41/76

41

Introduction


What matters inteaching/learning?Education, as explained in the previous section D1 - Introduction, isthe transfer of knowledge, skills and/or moral values from one person to

another. This transfer can be affected by many things (e.g. the students

ability or the teachers support). If you can understand what things influ-

ence Education, then it is possible to plan better to create the best condi-

tions for it to happen.

What actors afect the success o Education eforts?

In this guidebook, we decided to focus on three main things that can affect Edu-

cation. These things are:

Student Characteristics

Education Characteristics

Education Context Characteristics

D2.


42/76

42

Introduction


Student Characteristics

Teaching something to a student that is motivated, curious and positive is much

different than teaching a student that does not want to learn, is indifferent to what

is being taught and does not believe in his ability to learn or extract anything use-

ful from what is being presented. The following characteristics are important to

ensure in a student:

Minimum level of capability to learn

Belief in own capability for learning

Motivation and interest in learning

Involvement with the education efforts

Minimum level of capability to learn

In order for the teaching of Disaster Preparedness to work, the students, regard-

less of age, gender or status, must be able to understand and memorize the

techniques that will be taught.

Belief in own capability for learning

If a person is not condent of his/her capability for learning, he/she will much

more likely to be an unsuccessful student. This happens because, during learn-

ing, most people will face, sooner or later, a moment where they feel they are not

capable of progressing.

If a person is condent that him/her can learn the things that will be presented,

then that person will be more likely to put a greater effort and overcome initial

obstacles.

Motivation and interest in learning

Learning is a mental process and it depends a lot on the students will to learn.

If you try to teach someone that does not want to learn, you will not be able to

do it. A person with no motivation will not pay attention or put effort into trying to

understand the concepts you teach him/her.

Motivation is important also because without it, students will not be curious and

try to discover things on their own.

Motivated students will learn better and will also push you to do a good job as a

teacher.

Involvement with the education efforts

This is related with the previous point on motivation but has some small differ-

ences. A student can be very motivated but still, work mostly alone and on his/her

own tasks.

On the other hand, a student that gets deeply involved with the education efforts

will be more exposed to the study subject. At the same time, when a student gets

more involved with the education efforts (e.g. helping in planning classes, teach-

ing other students, experimenting and searching for more solutions that the ones

you give ) he/she will see the backstage of education and understand better

how Teaching/Learning works.


43/76

43

Introduction


Education Characteristics

It is easy to understand that the way you teach something will inuence how well

people will learn it. This is why people teach different things in different ways. A

father will teach a son how to sh, by taking him with him and showing the child

how it is done. A teacher teaches mathematics with lessons and exercises. You

can see examples of this all around you.

The following list shows what things affect the Educational methods the most:

Principles of Learning

Training Content

Training Delivery

Cognitive Style

Principles of Learning

Principles of Learning are a group of conditions that should be met for any

Educational Method. These are characteristics of a good Method and you shouldfollow them in your efforts. It is possible to write entire books on the topic, but for

this project, we prefer a simpler introduction. The following principles of learning

are commonly used:

The previous knowledge of students can help or affect new learning

You should teach students according to what they know and at the ap-

propriate time

Thewaystudentsconnectpiecesofknowledgeinuencestheirlearn -

ing

You should teach students in an organized way, so they can make

good mental connections between pieces of knowledge

Studentsmotivationinuenceswhattheydolearn

You should keep your students motivated and they will learn and re-

tain much more knowledge

Students achieve mastery by learning skills, practice their application

and learn when to apply them

When teaching, your should give students opportunities to practice

what they have learned and to determine when to use specic skills

Students learn better when they have clear objectives and feedback on

their performance

You should give your students clear objectives and tell them how well

they are doing

Thedevelopmentofstudentsisinuencedbythesocialatmosphereof

the learning environment

You should promote an appropriate (not too strict, not too relaxed)

social environment in your efforts

For students to become good self-learners, they must be able to noticeand adjust the way they learn

If you want students to become independent, they must be able to be

self-critical and able to decide on how to change their situation.


44/76

44

Introduction


Depending on the culture of your community, you might realize that these princi-

ples might not have all the same inuence, but generally speaking, try to incorpo-

rate them in you teaching efforts.

Training Content

Naturally, what you teach your studnts is very important for their success in learn-

ing. Since you will start by teaching them the techniques found in this book, thishas been already adapted to be simple and accessible.

In the future, when you start your own educational efforts (e.g. teaching your own

techniques or other things besides Disaster Preparedness), you should keep this

in mind.

Always teach only what is relevant and accessible to your students.

Training Delivery

Training Delivery is, very simply put, the way you will teach your students. As it

was said previously, different things to teach require different ways of teaching.

When you teach practical skills (e.g. shing, cooking, building houses, repair-

ing motors or the technical skills in this book ), it is best to teach in a practicalway, where people observe but also experiment with the subject. When teaching

theoretical subjects (e.g. the importance of Disaster Preparedness ), people learn

better by a mix of theoretical explaining and exercises.

Cognitive Style

Cognitive style is the way people think. Not everybody thinks about thinks in the

same way. People receive new information and make sense of it in diverse ways.

You can see this when you see people that reach different conclusions after

learning the same things.

Cognitive Style can depend on the culture of an individual, and it is possible that

the people in your community have a cognitive style different from the one of thewriters of this book. A similar concept is the Learning Style, described ahead in

this section.


45/76

45

Introduction


Education Context Characteristics

Teaching/Learning are part of a process, which why so many factors inuence it.

The Environment where these take place also has an importance. This environ-

ment is not just the physical place (e.g. class room), but the more general social

ambient that surrounds people when they are being educated.

There are a few factors that inuence the education environment:

Support from teachers

Support from colleagues

Opportunity to use knowledge

Support from teachers

People learn better when their teachers are open to new questions and willing

to help them understand things that may be more complicated. When a student

sees that a teacher has no problems in answering questions, that student is more

comfortable in asking for help, when he/she does not comprehend some topic.

If students are comfortable to expose their doubts and the teacher helps them in

fully understanding a topic, the students knowledge will advance with no gaps.

Support also means encouragement from teachers, when a student is doing

well in his/her studies. If a teacher realizes a student is not doing his/her best, the

teacher should also be supportive, by encouraging the student to perform better.

Basically, Support from teachers is an attitude where the teacher cares

about the students development and takes active steps to improve it.

Support from colleagues

People do not learn all at the same time, some are faster, other slower. Some

people learn some issues better than others and some people have personalproblems that might affect their learning.

Basically, this means that not all your students will be at the same level in learn-

ing the material you teach them. This is normal.

When there is an environment where students help each other (but not cheating),

students that are more advanced in learning can help other students in learning

better. This can be very motivating because the students know that other people

in the same situation (other students) can help them if there is a more difcult

topic or if they are not feeling motivated.

When students help each other, everybody benets.

Opportunity to usePeople learn better when they have the opportunity to apply what they have

learned. You can observe this with most tasks you can think of : reading, writing,

practicing an instrument or repairing machines. With the Disaster Preparedness

techniques shown in this book, the same happens.

If you want people to learn better, you should use their knowledge. This means

letting people try the techniques themselves and guiding them in the process.

Give your students an opportunity to apply the things you teach them, so

the students become more familiar with them.


46/76

46

Introduction


How do people learn?Because Education can be such a complex topic, there are many theo-

ries around it and about the way people learn. For this book, we have

used Kolbs Experiential Learning Theory. This theory is widely accepted

by Education professionals as a valid way of explaining how people learn.

What is Experiential Learning Theory?

Experiential Learning Theory says that learning is something that happens in a

persons mind when the person transforms experiences into knowledge.

An example: When you touch a hot cooking pot, you get burned. You experience

the burn and in your mind, you understand that hot cooking pots burn.

This theory says that everything we learn, we learn because we experience

something and then transform that experience, in our minds, into facts that we

memorize.

When we learn, there are two things that are important:

How we experience things (or perceive)

How we transform experiences into knowledge (or understand)

D3.

Useful Information

Experiential Learn-ing Theory and the

Learning Style Inven-

tory were developed

by David Kolb, as a

result of his studies

in adult education.


47/76

47

Introduction


How we experience (or perceive) things?

Different people experience things in different ways. Some people prefer to arrive

to new experiences, by THINKING and other people prefer FEELING.

An example: Imagine that you need to now if the water boiling in a pot, is hot.

There is two ways of knowing, you can remember that boiling water is very hot

or you can touch the water and get burned. In both cases, you experienced the

discovery that that water in that pot is hot.

Ofcially, in this theory, FEELING is called Concrete Experience and THINK-

ING is called Abstract Conceptualization. To keep things simple, in this book,

we will use the terms FEELING and THINKING.

How we transorm experiences into knowledge (or understand)

Now imagine a different situation: You are teaching your son how to do some-

thing (e.g. wash his hands).

There are two ways he can learn how to wash his hands. He can pay a lot of at-

tention to you, washing your hands, and observe. Or he can wash his hands and

learn by doing it.When you transform experience into knowledge by WATCHING or observing

something, we say you are doing Reective Observation. When you transform

experience into knowledge by DOING, we say that you are doing Active Experi-

mentation,

Again, to keep things simple, we will use the words WATCHING and DOING.

Does everybody learn in the same way?

No. If you pay attention to the Experiential Learning Theory, you will see that it

has 2 phases, an initial perception phase, where people experience an event,and a second understanding phase, where people convert that experience into

knowledg. Each of this phases has two modes:

Perceive

THINKING

FEELING

Understand

WATCHING

DOING

Different people prefer different Perceiving modes and different Understanding

modes. These preferences are also related to culture, so people from the same

culture, probably like to learn in similar ways.

Section E, Your Community, has more information on this.


48/76

48

Introduction


What are the possible combinations o preerences in learning?

There are four possible combinations of modes in Experiential Learning Theory,

and they are called Learning Styles. Originally, they were explained with the of-

cial names, but in this book, we will use the simpler names THINKING, FEEL-

ING, WATCHING and DOING.

The possible combinations are:

FEELING + WATCHING

FEELING + DOING

THINKING + WATCHING

THINKING + DOING

Each of this combination, means a different preference for learning. When you

understand the preferred learning style of the people in your community, you can

prepare education activities that are more appropriate.

FEELING + WATCHING (officially named Diverging)

People with a Diverging learning style have plenty of cultural interests and like

to gather information. They are interested in people, tend to be imaginative and

emotional, and tend to be strong in the arts. People with the Diverging style

prefer to work in groups, to listen with an open mind and to receive personal

feedback.

To teach people that prefer this style, it is good to:

Use group activities

Encourage participation (e.g. open discussions)

Use diverse teaching activities

Use theater, music and dramatization as education activities

FEELING + DOING (officially named Accommodating)

People with a preference for this learning style like to use other peoples analysis,

and prefer to take a practical, experiential approach. They are attracted to new

challenges and experiences, and to carrying out plans. They commonly act on

gut instinct rather than logical analysis.

People with an Accommodating learning style will tend to rely on others for infor-mation than carry out their own analysis. This learning style is prevalent and use-

ful in roles requiring action and initiative. People with an Accommodating learning

style prefer to work in teams to complete tasks. They set targets and actively

work in the eld trying different ways to achieve an objective.


Give people opportunities to experiment (e.g. let people build their own

Disaster Preparedness supplies)

Give people information and present challenges

Give people clear instructions on how to do things

Motivate people by showing their progress and their goals

Show people how to do things and let them do things themselves


49/76

49

Introduction


THINKING + WATCHING (officially named Assimilating)

People that like to learn in this way, prefer a concise, logical approach. Ideas

and concepts are more important than people. These people require good clear

explanation rather than practical opportunity.

They are very good at understanding very varied information and organizing it a

clear logical format. People with an Assimilating learning style are less focused

on people and more interested in ideas and abstract concepts. The nd abstract

topics more interesting than practical knowledge.


Give information in readings, lectures and presentation

Give people the opportunity to reach their own conclusions

Focus on theoretical topics instead of practical information ( they prefer

the teaching the theory behind Disaster Preparedness instead of the tech-

niques to make the products)

THINKING + DOING (officially named Converging)

People that prefer this approach to learning like to solve new problems. They like

to think about solutions and then try those solutions. These people nd technical

issues more important than human issues (e.g. the need to solve the problem is

more important that saving face) and are best at nding practical use for ideas

and theories.

These people like the idea of specialization and the opportunity to test real-life

situations.

To teach people that prefer this style, it is good to:Show practical information and how can this information be useful

Divide work groups based on their specialty or job

Give people the opportunity to test new ideas

Give concrete goals

Do these learning styles make sense with everybody in my community?

It depends. As you will nd out in section E, Your Community, it is possible to

predict what kind of learning styles are better for each culture.

Obviously, not everybody in your community is exactly the same, but probably,

people share similar preferences in learning.


50/76

50

Introduction



51/76

Your communityHow to study your community, howis the local culture and what are theeducation conditions.

Includes Assessment Questionnairesand Interpretation Guides.

E


52/76


52

Introduction


53/76

53


Introduction

IntroductionWhen this book was written, it was made to be useful for the largest

number of people and contexts. This means that its information and the

way that this information is given to you are very general.

For better results in educating your community, it is important to adaptto it, but first, you must understand its particular characteristics

What is important in characterizing my community?

Naturally, everything is important to understand what makes your community

different from other communities. All the little details make a difference and the

more you know, the more appropriate you can make your education project,

Obviously, it is impossible to learn EVERYTHING about your community, so we

suggest you pay attention to a few important factors:

Where are you, geographically

What are your neighboring communities and what do you think you have

in common with them (e.g. customs, language, traditions, occupations, reli-

gion or beliefs, etc)

How wealthy or educated are the people in your community

Howdoesthemajorityofpeopledenesuccess(e.g.isitmoney?Isit

family bond?, etc)

How people see personal development and learning

Perhaps you have noticed some differences between your community and other

communities in the same region. They are different because their contexts aredifferent. If you can see differences within the same region, you can imagine how

different your community is from ours, where this book was written. Because

probably live in v

Documents

Booklet 02 Educators Guidebook