Lack Of Governments Taking Responsibility Is Killing Children

PRLog (Press Release) – Oct 09, 2007 – This has been stated today, the United Nations International Day of Disaster Reduction 10th October, by Jackson Kennedy, an Australian twelve year old. He and Chiara Dhu are amazed at the lack of Disaster Education disseminating from the Governments to the community.

Chiara and Jackson, being deeply concerned about this lack of Disaster Risk Reduction Education across the world, are following the advice of UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Margareta Wahlström, who stated that “disaster-risk reduction is too important to be left to the experts”: they are taking matters out of the hands of slow-acting politicians and into their own hands.

Chiara and Jackson have called an International Youth Summit to be held on the Gold Coast, Australia in April 2008, where the younger generations will come together to discuss how to make Disaster Risk Reduction Education available to every school student around the world. Chiara and Jackson are suggesting that current world leaders are ignoring the future of their world, given that the current leaders will be long gone by the time the full implications of global warming take place, and that it will be the younger generation who are left to deal with the mess of global warming.

Jackson states that Governments have to take notice of what is going on, and give the community information about disaster preparedness, so that children can know what to do in case of disasters. He thinks it is distressing that the world governments have known about global warming for so long, but have not taken action to prepare the community to deal with the effects of it. Chiara’s and Jackson’s parents are also severely concerned with the lack of Disaster Education being disseminated within the schools by their local state Government authorities.

Given that October 10th is the United Nations International Day of Disaster Reduction, it is disturbing to see how little action is being taken by our Governments. Our leaders are claiming that their budgets cannot accommodate Disaster Reduction Education, however, for every dollar spent on Disaster Preparedness can save the Governments up to $7 in relief and recovery costs, money that our Public Safety Professionals around the world would appreciate to enable them to save lives.



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