• Begin dialogue between community and experts.
Dialogue between the school community and those
with knowledge about hazards and hazard-resistant
construction practices can ensure the school building is
safe and responsive to community needs. Hosting public
seminars, mass meetings or round table discussions
are good ways to begin this long-term dialogue. Hazard
specialists, such as hydrologists, meteorologists and
seismologists should talk with communities about hazards
in their region. Engineers, architects and contractors can
explain how buildings can be constructed safely.
SECTION III: MOBILISATION
This early engagement helps build trust and provide
a solid foundation for the Planning Stage, but only if
done with respect. While experts may have important
technical knowledge and more education than community
members, experts need to be receptive to important local
knowledge and be able to draw this out. An authoritative
attitude alienates rather than builds dialogue.
Key activity 4:
Activating, re-activating or
forming a school management
committee
Stakeholders in community-based safe school construction
need to collaborate with each other through an engagement
framework that clearly defines roles and responsibilities.
Without such a framework of responsibilities, programs may
stall or key activities may be overlooked. The framework also
formalises the commitment to community empowerment
inherent in a community-based approach. Education
systems frequently have a foundation for supporting
safer schools framework in their existing school-based
management system. Program managers should identify
or establish a school management committee, which
may choose to establish a broader sub-committee for
school construction oversight. In ideal contexts, education
authorities will have included responsibility for safer
school construction in terms of reference for a school
management committee. The committee overseeing
safer school construction should widely represent key
stakeholder groups, including education staff, parentteacher associations, youth, community leaders, civil society
organisations, project financers, elected leaders and local
emergency response authorities.
Where conflict or social marginalisation is present, program
managers need to take care to include representatives
from marginalised groups – for example, women, religious
minorities, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities – and
create environments where they can feel safe to contribute.
An orientation on safe school construction creates dialogue between
hazard and building specialists and school community stakeholders
in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Photo: Bishnu Pandey.
Models of traditional structures with and without hazard-resistant
construction show remarkably different behaviour when shaken on
a simple shake table during a community demonstration in Kabul,
Afghanistan. Photo: Bishnu Pandey.
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Rather than merely being informed or consulted, the
school management committee should ideally be the
primary decision-making body on safer school construction
projects, often in collaboration with the program manager.
The committee may make key decisions about the school
site and design, and they may have key responsibilities in
maintenance and construction oversight. The committee
should understand their decision-making should be in line
with a commitment to safer schools, even though the ultimate
responsibility of ensuring such outcomes rests with the
implementing actor.