Scaling up child-centered risk communication in Romania
This case study belongs to a compendium of good practices and success stories in disaster risk reduction shared during the 2025 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP2025). These stories reflect the real-world progress being made by governments, communities, and organizations around the world to reduce risk and build resilience.
Romania has adopted a comprehensive National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (2024-2035) that puts children at the center of risk communication and preparedness. Backed by national leadership on safe schools, the approach couples school-based DRR training at scale with a new bilingual digital platform to reach children where they learn and play. In 2024 alone, more than 1.7 million students and preschoolers participated in preparedness drills-evidence of nationwide reach and momentum.
The push is anchored in partnerships between government, UNICEF, and regional DRR networks (including DPPI SEE), aligning classroom training, drills, and teacher support with age-appropriate content.
To sustain engagement beyond drills, Romania launched beprepared.ro / fiipregatit.ro, a bilingual (RO/EN) platform that aggregates interactive, age-appropriate content-from games and short videos to hazard explanations and what-to-do guides-designed for children and families. The platform supports classroom activities and at-home learning, reinforcing core behaviors for earthquakes, floods, fires, and severe weather.
The philosophy behind the strategy and its implementation is to treat children as risk communicators, equipping them to understand warnings, recognize local hazards, and practice protective actions. This is reinforced by investments in safer learning environments (modernization under the Recovery and Resilience Plan and an updated seismic code), ensuring that messages, skills, and spaces align. The model shows how child-centered communication, scaled through schools and technology, can move a country from one-off campaigns to systematic, nationwide readiness.
Source: Shared at Thematic Session 1-4 by H.E. Raed Arafat, Government of Romania