In Chile, over 14,000 school administrators, teachers, students and parents have received training in new and comprehensive school safety planning methodologies that focus on promoting a culture of prevention from the earliest years of schooling. Government Resolution No. 51 of 4 January 2001 decrees that such training be carried out in every one of the over 10,000 schools in the country.
The Comprehensive School Safety Plan was designed to meet the following objectives:
A handbook explains step by step all the measures that must be taken by each school facility to design its own action plan based on the local hazards and environmental and social conditions. Two methodologies assist in this process: one, AIDEP, helps to collect detailed information on the school and its environment through the microzoning of risks and resources; the other, ACCEDER, provides a blueprint for designing a response plan.
The first step is the establishment of each facility’s School Safety Committee, chaired by the school’s principal, who is responsible for appointing the other members and ensuring the continuity of the effort. The Committee includes administrative staff, teachers, parents and students, as well as first responders such as firefighters, police officers, Red Cross volunteers or public health personnel.
It is the Committee’s job to encourage everyone’s participation in their own safety by focusing on three lines of action:
In order to reinforce the construction of this culture of prevention, ONEMI has also inaugurated the Interactive Civil Defense Museum, which is open to the public but caters particularly to students and organized community representatives. There they not only learn about practical prevention measures but can study relief maps of the entire country, examine such tools as seismographers and pluviometers, and experiment with a seismic simulator that can portray earthquakes of between III and IV on the Mercalli Scale.
This methodology reflects the significant changes the country has gone through since 1977, when the Ministry of the Interior’s
National Emergency Agency (ONEMI) implemented a previous version that struck a chord throughout Latin America. While the old methodology was innovative for its time, it concentrated on evacuation and response, rather than on those actions that can help prevent or at least mitigate the impact of natural and man-made disasters. The new one, by contrast, provides the educational community with the necessary tools to increase their security, in part by enabling them to identify all the hazards confronting the facilities and surrounding areas.
Chile is located in one of the world’s most seismically and volcanically active areas. In addition to forming part of the Pacific Fire Ring, it is the place where the Nazca and South American tectonic plates collide. Over 50 of its volcanoes have erupted in historic times, and the abundant rivers flowing down from the Andes often provoke floods, landslides and mudslides. At the same time, its extensive Pacific coastline exposes much of the country to the hazard of tsunamis. In addition to these natural hazards, Chile is also exposed to man-made disasters as a result of technological advances, among them chemical, industrial and traffic accidents.
Chileans have proven their ability to recover from such destructive events and their impact on the population and the country’s economy. Given that such disasters inevitably set back the nation’s development, however, it is increasingly
apparent that such hardiness must be supplemented with greater foresight in forecasting and preparing for such events as part of an integral process of sustainable development.
A culture of prevention calls for changes in behavior, habits and attitudes—a process that must start as early as possible. Hence the irreplaceable role of the education system in promoting such a culture.
For more information contact: Carmen Fernandez, ONEMI pcivil@onemi.cl