Workshop on evacuation planning for schools in Palu, Indonesia

A workshop on evacuation and disaster preparedness was carried out with 30 Principals of schools that were affected by the 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami in Palu, Indonesia. The workshop is part of a series of interventions in schools to be conducted within the ESRC funded GCRF project "Resilient Schools Hubs" that sees UCL EPICentre and the Bartlett collaborating with Tadulaku (TU) and Syiah Kuala (SKU) Universities in Indonesia.

Research within the Resilient Schools Hib project had demonstrated that almost none of the schools in Palu had evacuation plans, nor did they fix items in classrooms to the walls etc. to stop them from falling and causing injury or impeding evacuation during a natural disaster. The workshop provided information on disaster preparedness and conducted interactive sessions on evacuation plan design, highlighting the need for drills training of staff and special consideration of students with special needs or that are less mobile.

The workshop, was conducted by Prof Ella Melianda, Dr Yunita Idriss (SKU) and Prof. Sukiman Nurdin (TU) who co-designed the intervention with Dr Eyitayo Opabola, Prof. Tiziana Rossetto and Prof. Carmine Galasso (UCL). The principals were fully engaged and it is hoped that they will implement what hey have learned within their schools.

Resilient School Hubs Project