UNESCO supports 17th National Earthquake and Safety Drill in Schools
The UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office attended the drill at Pasadaran Vocational Girls’ School in the Abdulabad district of Southern Tehran.
On 29 November 2015, the 17th National Earthquake and Safety Drill took place in schools all across the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office attended the drill at Pasadaran Vocational Girls’ School in the Abdulabad district of Southern Tehran.
As soon as the alarm was sounded, all students dropped underneath their desks, covered their heads and held on to their desks for one minute. After that, the girls went out into the school yard in an orderly manner, where most of them sat down in rows.
During the simulation some of the students carried “injured” girls out of the school and provided first aid to them, while others set up tents and extinguished fires. Community members from the neighboring areas also came to the school to help set up tents and seek safe haven.
During the simulation exercise, the ambulances and fire truck arrived at the school about 15 minutes after the earthquake had hit. Representatives of the Iranian Red Crescent Society pointed out that this is likely what would happen in real life: “As it would take us some time to get to the scene, it is of the utmost importance that students and community members know what to do and how to administer first aid to the wounded in the immediate aftermath of a major earthquake.”
The UNESCO Representative, Ms. Kuisch Laroche, spoke about her Organization’s commitment towards the Worldwide Initiative for Safe Schools (WISS), which was launched during the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015. She mentioned that safe schools consist of three important pillars: Safe Learning Facilities; School Disaster Management; Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Resilience Education. She mentioned that UNESCO worked with governments around the world to support and promote those three pillars.
“The UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office covers four countries, namely Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan, and we work to support these four countries in several different areas of disaster risk reduction. In fact, tomorrow we will be opening a three-day meeting to discuss the implementation of a regional project on seismic risk assessment. In July 2015, we organized a four-day regional consultation meeting and training on the role of media and ICT in climate adaptation and DRR”, said Ms. Kuisch Laroche.
She went on to congratulate the principle and administration of Pasdaran Vocational School and said she was pleased to see so many journalist present at the school to cover the story. “The media have a very significant role to play in educating the general public about the importance of preparedness and disaster risk reduction”, said the UNESCO Representative.
For more information about UNESCO and Disaster Risk Reduction, please see:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/pcpd/natural-disaster-risk-reduction/
<- Back to: UNESCO Office in Tehran