Consistent messages about school safety should be
conveyed through multiple outreach channels. These
may include posters, social media, public events, radio
announcements, newspapers, mass leafleting and others.
At the same time, it is important to provide journalists and
social service representatives with basic information about
how hazards in their area can affect the community’s
children and their access to education. These individuals
are in a good position to raise community-wide concerns
and build consensus around the concept of safer schools.
• Hold an orientation meeting. As risk communication
messages build interest in safer schools, individual school
communities need to be oriented to the community-based
approach to safer school construction. This orientation
can continue the risk awareness messages around
hazards and include messages about protecting schools
and children’s access to education from these hazards.
Program managers should explain how safer schools fit
within a Comprehensive School Safety Framework and
support a conversation about each stakeholder’s role in
safe schools.
RESOURCE BOX
Communication channels for
mobilising communities around
safe schools
• Community meetings on the need of school safety
• Newspaper articles and advertisements
• Fliers and pamphlets with earthquake education
• Videos of past earthquakes and methods to fix
vulnerabilities
• Public demonstrations and exhibitions of safety, for
example, the shake table demonstration
• Fact sheets
• Invitations to community meetings
• Press releases
• Focused training on construction
• Hands-on exercises
SECTION III: MOBILISATION
• Frame the message and convey it to public. Based
on the assessment of stakeholder risk awareness,
program managers should develop a core set of
messages targeting each stakeholder group and their
specific role in the community. Messaging to students may
focus on their fundamental right to safety and survival.
For parents it may be the protection of their children.
To tradespeople the m essaging could be around their
professional capacity and responsibility to build safer
schools. Focus groups can help refine these messages
and identify strategic channels through which to share the
information. It is important that everyone recognize that
they can make a difference as every safety measure does
make a difference.
• Technology exhibitions
• Site visits
• Art and other works by students on the topic,
including paintings, essays or a quiz.
• Disaster safety-themed games for students
• Extracurricular activities, like a hazard hunt or
mapping games
• Student drama performances
Conveying messages about
hazards and safe school
construction can sometimes
create more confusion than
clarity. When communities
are unfamiliar with these
concepts and have low
literacy levels, cartoons,
illustrations and photos are
good alternatives to text.
However, communities can
misunderstand these, so
any public outreach material needs to be field-tested.
In many cultures simple symbols – like arrows, cartoon
thought bubbles and and marks – can be wildly
misinterpreted.
Communicating Building for Safety by Eric Dudley
and Ane Haaland provide humorous examples of
miscommunication and good tips for getting safety
concepts across in low-literacy contexts.
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