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A 3-day workshop will be organized in partnership with the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO from 13 to 15 October on Tanna Island, Vanuatu, to share knowledge, experiences and good practices related to the passage of cyclone PAM, and to prepare an action plan for the future.

Participants will be invited to empower youth in rural and remote areas to be more resilient towards disaster.

At the end of the workshop, an action plan will be presented to policy makers, village chiefs, school principals, and other stakeholders for their planning and consideration.

Youth facilitators will be selected and funded by the New Zealand National Commission amongst youth who have been actively involved in the previous Looking Beyond Disaster (LBD) events and the development of the LBD toolkit.

Looking Beyond Disaster (LBD) exists for young people to support and enhance natural and man-made disaster and climate risk management at local, national, regional and global levels, for resilience of people, communities and countries. Recognising the considerable impact of preparedness initiatives over response efforts, an emphasis is placed on ‘creating solutions now’ rather than ‘solving problems later’. A large number of past LBD participants have had experience in disaster response and realised the value of focussing instead on preparedness.

Children and youth have been recognised as valuable contributors through their perspectives, knowledge, skills and needs which can help to ensure that disaster risk plan designing, resourcing and implementation are tailored accordingly.

LBD provides a way of bringing young people together to explore natural and man-made disaster and climate risk factors from local to global perspectives, and approach new solutions in whatever ways they might imagine.