By Owen Dane L.

Rosco
12 STEM – Hadji Omar
Ma’am Merry Grace Austria, RN, LPT
Disaster, Readiness and Risk Redcution

Risk Factors of Disasters: A Bird's Eye View of the Future

On behalf of all the resource speakers, I would like to express our appreciation to the SK
chairman of Rosary Heights VI – Krislamville for the initiative to broaden our understanding of
risk factors underlying disasters in this Environmental Awareness Activity. Now, what do we
imagine if we hear the word disaster? Is your partner breaking up with you? Your parents forbid
you to go out with your friends? Now all of those can be considered disasters but a disaster is a
phenomenon that takes resources and life. As stated by the International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), “Disasters are serious disruptions to the functioning
of a community that exceeds its capacity to cope using its resources.” Now, disasters are
classified into two categories: natural disasters – an actual occurrence of natural hazard if it
significantly harms a community; and made disasters that have an element of human intent,
negligence, or error involving a failure of a man-made system, as opposed to natural disasters
resulting from natural hazards.

Disasters can be caused by many different kinds of hazards and risk factors. These risk
factors constitute complications and increase the magnitude of calamities. Factors that underlie
disasters include climate change, environmental degradation, globalized economic
development, poverty and inequality, poorly planned and managed urban development, and
weak governance. Now all of this can be overwhelming for our youth but with proper knowledge
and a bird’s eye view we can have a whole new perspective on how to handle such a serious
matter.

Why are these considered risk factors you might ask. Well, all of them either change the
pattern we’ve already observed or make us more vulnerable to disasters. For example, climate
change and environmental degradation, these factors alter the natural cycle of nature and make
typhoons stronger, melting the ice caps causing an extreme rise in sea level and overall making
disasters more unpredictable. In a more social aspect, poverty, inequality, and globalized
economic development are factors that deal more with the social gap between the rich and the
poor. As the polarization increases, the unfortunate are being pushed more and more into a
more hazardous area and are less capable of investing
 in risk-reduction measures. While in contrast, the rich are receiving more leisure and are
privileged and free from the dangers of disasters. And the last two factors that are usually left
out are poorly planned and managed urban development, and weak governance. Both
constitute an incompetent system and greed which correlated to the previous factors. Disaster
risk is disproportionately concentrated in lower-income countries with ineffective governance
compared to developed countries.

With all the complicated matters and heavy obligations, what can the youth do to help
ease these problems? First and foremost is to educate ourselves on the risk factors. You can
take advantage of the information age that we are currently experiencing. Gather more
important and relevant information on how to be an activist in disaster risk and environmental
issues. And the same way I did just today, you can also spread this knowledge to other people
on what you’ve learned on your tread. From what you’ve learned, create emergency plans to
share with your family and peers, influence them to build emergency kits and practice
evacuation drills, and be an activist in disaster risk reduction. Layout all of these activities by
keeping a physical or digital note of all you’ve done in preparation for the next step – sharing
and implementing your experiences. By connecting the youth with the resources you’ve finally
achieved what a responsible citizen should be. Participate and encourage other people to join in
environmental events of local emergency services, and if you can, share with them the
experiences and notions you’ve acquired on your way there. Give them a piece of more detailed
and grounded information that the government agencies can use to improve upon.

I have every confidence in all of you and your ability to successfully guide the future of
our environment during a difficult period in our generation. I would like to take this opportunity to
assure all of you that you can count on our community’s full support and cooperation in your
path to creating a safer environment for all of this. That will be all thank you.