#NoNaturalDisasters in the workplace

Introduction

The foundations of the #NoNaturalDisasters campaign has been hundreds of years in the making. In fact, as early as the 1700’s there was recognition that the cause of a disaster isn’t a natural process.

Speed through to present day and the most recent addition to this centuries-old discussion is the #NoNaturalDisasters Twitter account and consolidated online campaign, which was launched in June 2018. The aim of which is simple: to use the scale and reach of social media to inform and educate within the disaster risk, humanitarian and adaptation sectors that using ‘natural’ to describe disasters is incorrect. 

Most of the incidents of ‘natural’ being used to describe disasters happen in work-related communications (reports, articles, job titles etc). With the average person spending 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime, they will use terminology relevant to the job they are performing multiple times a day, often without considering the background of the term, it’s phrasing or even whether the term itself is correct. 

In response to the findings of a previous survey which showed the use of “natural disaster” was widespread in DRR-focused organisations, this new phase of the #NoNaturalDisasters discussion will focus on the workplace and how the description of disasters is framed both internally and externally, covering all types of communication including conversations, emails, job titles and presentations. #NoNaturalDisasters in the workplace will aim to inform through the provision of tool kits, online events, peer-reviewed evidence and discussions that will allow anyone wanting to spread the #NoNaturalDisasters message to do so within their place of work, to colleagues or elsewhere.

Webinar content

Over 90 minutes, the webinar will provide expertise and knowledge from a number of speakers and cover  the following:

Guidance on how to change the organisational language of a team or company and the tools necessary to build a unified and well-understood organisation-specific #NoNaturalDisasters campaign.

Shown the tools and techniques necessary to move from internal agreement to an external communication strategy aimed at educating, informing and providing campaign longevity with immediate stakeholders.

Specific discussion points, evidence and counter-arguments related to the wider #NoNaturalDisasters campaign that attendees may need to support a change in organisational language and the move away from “natural” to describe disasters.

A case study from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean exploring its journey away from ‘natural’ as a descriptor of disasters and its role in advocating the message more widely within the DRR community.

Speakers (in order of presentation)

• Hannah Tankard, Campaign Director - Business Emergency Resilience (Business in the Community (BITC)
• Navneet Yadav, Associate Director (Doers NGO)
• Rodrigo Mena, AiO Researcher - Disaster, humanitarian aid and conflict studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
• Saskia Carusi, External relations officer (UNDRR Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean)

Time: 13:30 - 15:00 BST (GMT+1)