SECTION I: INTRODUCTION
Preface
Purpose of this manual
All children deserve safe, accessible and culturally
appropriate school buildings — regardless of class, creed,
gender or ability. When children live in hazard-prone places
where high winds, earthquakes, floods and other hazards
threaten them, they need schools and grounds that protect
them.
• Raise awareness about hazards within communities
Yet recent disasters around the world attest to the fragility of
many schools.
Earthquakes in China, Pakistan, Haiti and other countries
have collapsed school buildings and crushed students.
Flooding, storm surge and tsunamis have swamped schools
in Japan, the United States, Thailand and countless other
nations. Rising waters have damaged school grounds and
destroyed educational material. It has kept students out of
school for weeks and months, stunting development. High
winds have blown off roofs and collapsed school buildings in
Ghana, Laos, Nicaragua and the Philippines – to name a few.
Students, staff and community need safer schools. When
schools will be used during crisis, safety has an added
dimension. Communities need to be able to access and
safely shelter in these school facilities.
Schools can be built safer and weak schools can be
strengthened with concerted effort. When communities
identify hazards and take them into account when planning
where and how to build, school grounds become safer.
When design teams and construction workers incorporate
hazard-resistant techniques in construction, the school
building becomes safer. These safer schools protect
students, staff and other occupants from death and injury
and become points of refuge for the wider community.
However, achieving safety is not always straightforward. In
many places, building codes lag behind best practices or
fail to address vernacular construction. Those who design
and construct schools may be unfamiliar with hazardresistant techniques or lack the oversight needed to ensure
such techniques are put to use. School communities may
inadvertently weaken schools through years of informal
building modifications or poor maintenance. The result is
schools that threaten communities rather than protect them.
A community-based approach seeks to achieve the twin
goals of safer schools and more resilient communities.
It treats school construction as a community learning
opportunity to better understand risks, collectively
commit to safety, and to learn and apply strategies
for safer construction. A community-based approach
builds community capacity in tandem with the laying of
foundations and erecting of classroom walls. It also prepares
communities to be knowledgeable caretakers of schools,
able to maintain the physical safety of the structures and the
culture of safety among those who use it.
V
This manual shows how community-based approaches to
safer school construction can do more than just provide
safer school buildings in hazard-prone places. It can also:
• Build local capacity for safe construction practices
• Strengthen a culture of safety within and around the
school
• Increase a sense of community ownership of the school
• Ensure community values are incorporated into
school designs
The scope of this manual
The focus of this manual is on the process of communitybased school construction. It should supplement technical
guidance on appropriate construction materials and
techniques, such as UNESCO’s 2013 Guidelines for
Earthquake-Resistant Non-Engineered Construction. This
manual considers community-based school construction
in depth, supplementing the broader Guidance Notes on
Safer School Construction published in 2009 by the Global
Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) of the
World Bank and the Inter-Agency Network for Education in
Emergencies (INEE).
Feedback on this manual
Every effort has been made to ensure that this manual is
rooted in practical first-hand experience of building schools
with the active participation of communities. Nevertheless,
recognising the broad range of contexts in which schools are
built and the ever evolving approaches of those involved in
school construction, the authors and editors are keen to hear
feedback from practitioners, communities and ministries of
education who use this manual during community-based
school construction projects. Feedback should be sent
to [email protected] and will be used
to update this package of material when appropriate.
Feedback used will be accredited to the individuals or
organisations in subsequent publication should they wish to
be acknowledged.