El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala
February 28 - March 12, 2010
ICA conducted a follow-up survey for ex-participants of the training course of Disaster Control for Central America, which has been taking place in Japan every year since 2000.
Although Central American countries are not ADRC member countries, one ADRC senior researcher joined this survey mission in Central America to evaluate the training course, and to learn current efforts which have been taken by them after joining the training course in order to gain good inputs for ADRC's similar training courses.
Many ex-participants said that they had learned the spirits and culture of disaster management (BOSAI) in Japan, such as focusing more on prevention rather than response, integration of disaster risk reduction into school education, high awareness of communities and individuals for disaster risk reduction, and efforts to hand over the lesson learned from the past disasters to next generation. And learning from these experiences in Japan, they have been conducting various activities after their return home.
On the other hand, following things are pointed out as the issues to be improved; 1) too many lectures on the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, 2) less lectures of other disasters, 3) less interactive sessions, 4) not enough time for the questions & answers session, 5) a few chances to visits communities, 6) less time for discussion among participants for their own experiences and what they learned in Japan, 7) some handouts are not translated to Spanish, 8) too much time for interpretation, 9) training schedule should be set for certain period of time every day.
And they recommended the following points for the future training course, 1) the training should be linked to HFA and regional disaster reduction plan in Central America, 2) there should be a good communication with ex-participants when nominating new participants and conducting pre-course lectures, 3) Action plans should be developed in concrete and achievable manners, 4) Action plans should be introduced in a meeting right after their return home, 5) all documents in the training course should be distributed in digital data, 6) there should be some opportunities and places to exchange information and experiences among ex-participants, 7) the second phase training course should be developed for ex-participants after they conducted various activities.
JICA will make a final report shortly including the interview result to the ex-participants.
(2010/3/25 16:40)