Philippines: Bohol children undergo week-long summer camp 2015

Tagbilaran - Some 100 school children met at the week-long Children’s Summer Camp 2015 that tackled how to prepare for disaster and how to cope with climate change.

As part of Save the Children’s commitment to prepare children of Bohol for future disasters, they facilitated the 5-day summer camp that started on April 21 at Agustinian Retreat House in Dauis town to help the children develop life-saving skills, leadership and communications during disasters and improve their knowledge on risks and hazards around them.

Participants included incoming Grades 4 to 6 students from 25 schools in Loon and Maribojoc towns, which are among the hardest hit during the October 2013 magnitude 7.2 earthquake.

The 26 barangays in those municipalities are covered by Save the Children’s School-based Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) project in Bohol.

The same pupils compose the Children DRR Groups who are trained to propagate DRR and climate change adaptation (CCA) concepts in their respective schools.

Earlier today, the 100 children participants planted 100 mangroves in Barangay Napo in Loon, in celebration of the 45th annual International Mother Earth Day celebrated by the member countries of the United Nations.

After the early morning activity, basic first aid and emergency response training followed conducted by the members of the Telephone and Radio System Integrated Emergency Response (TaRSIER 117) to complement their DRR training.

The activity is seen as a vehicle in increasing awareness on hazards and its effect to children and their community.

Through this School-based DRR project in Bohol, Save the Children aims to help schools and communities to be better prepared for disasters to create safe learning environment, saving lives, and increasing resiliency of target beneficiaries reaching 5,400 schools.