German groups provide disaster drills at schools

The Jakarta Post

It was just another normal day at SLB Karnna Manohara, a special school for children with hearing problems in Condongcatur village of Depok subdistrict, Sleman regency. As usual, the students were studying inside their classrooms with their teachers.

All of a sudden, someone beat repeatedly on one of four drums placed at the school, followed almost immediately by the beating of the three remaining drums, filling the school compound with noise. While the older students hid calmly under tables and desks as instructed, some of the younger ones cried out.

The students were taking part in an earthquake drill; the drums were an alarm to alert all at the school of an earthquake.

A short time later, the students exited their classrooms one by one in orderly fashion, assisted by their teachers, and headed to the front courtyard where a supervising teacher was waiting for them.

"This is our first experience at having an earthquake drill here. That is why some of the children were crying during the drill. But I am glad it ran relatively smoothly," SLB Karnna Manohara headmaster Tantan Rustandi told The Jakarta Post after the drill.

He added that the school planned to conduct the simulation regularly.

"I do realize the importance of such drills in reducing the risk for children in disasters, as their safety is our topmost concern," said Tantan.

SLB Karnna Manohara, which is managed by Yayasan Tuna Rungu Yogyakarta, has a total of eight classes spanning preschool, kindergarten and elementary school levels. A typical school day runs from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Each class has between eight to 12 students, many of whom come from the neighboring Central Java regencies of Magelang, Surakarta, Kebumen, Cilacap and Banyumas.

The drums, Tantan said, were used as a signal to the children, warning them of an earthquake. Although the students had auditory disabilities, they could still hear the sounds produced by a drum.

"Through the drills, hopefully the students will know exactly what to do when there is an earthquake," he said, adding that the program was held with the support of Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), a government-sponsored German technical cooperation.

Speaking separately to the Post, the principal advisor of the group's Science Education Quality Improvement Project (GTZ-SEQIP), Dieter Goepfert, said the organization had been providing the same program to about 400 elementary schools across Indonesia since September 2005 in response to the December 2004 tsunami.

"We have a target of around 200 elementary schools in Yogyakarta and Klaten alone," said Goepfert, adding that the SLB Karnna Manohara was thus far the first school for disabled children that GTZ had assisted.

While the majority of schools take part in the earthquake drill at the initiative of GTZ in cooperation with local education offices, the program is provided to schools for disabled students upon request.

"We have so far received about five other requests from schools for disabled students in Yogyakarta," Goepfert said.

As part of the program, the headmaster, teachers and administrative staff at a particular school are given a two-day workshop, which provides with information about the impacts of a disaster and how to react when one occurred.

"We also provide them with first-aid training for life-threatening injuries, bleeding and cardiac arrest," Goepfert said.

The training program closes with a simulation for disaster preparedness that involves all students.

Aside from the simulation, students are also given three posters to take home. The posters provide information on earthquakes and what people should do during an actual disaster.

"We have experience that such programs do contribute a great deal in reducing the risks of a disaster, especially earthquakes," said Goepfert.

When the May 27, 2006 earthquake rocked Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java, for example, about 40 percent of students who had taken part in the program applied what they had learned, even though the earthquake happened when they were at home.

"What is also worth noticing is that none of these students were injured," Goepfert said.

However, he said, for the program to have a real, positive impact, the drills must be conducted regularly -- once a week in the first month and then every two months, alternating between an announced and then an unannounced drill.

Goepfert also said that elementary students were selected deliberately because previous experience had shown that they were among the most vulnerable groups in a community during a disaster.

"We strongly suggest that schools in areas prone to disasters, not only earthquakes but also others including tsunamis, floods and landslides, must have such training," he said.

Project manager Sae Kani of Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB), a German non-governmental humanitarian group, shares the same belief. Kani said that in many other countries, earthquake evacuation drills did contribute a great deal in reducing risks.

"During a recent powerful earthquake in Japan, for example, where such drills have been conducted regularly not only in schools but also in offices, no fatalities were recorded," she said.

In response to the Java earthquake, over the past few months the Berlin-based ASB has developed elementary school teaching materials for earthquake preparedness in partnership with the Asian Disaster Reduction Center, the biggest disaster management institution in Asia, based in Kobe, Japan.

"The project aims to improve relevant guidance and information that can be immediately used and practiced," said Kani during a recent earthquake drill involving 300 students of SD Deresan elementary school, also in Condongcatur village.

As much as possible, she added,the project avoided presenting academic concepts on the causes of earthquakes; instead, it focused on what people should do in the event of an earthquake.

The ASB has so far completed training programs for more than 1,000 of almost 1,200 elementary schools in Yogyakarta, Bantul regency and Sleman regency, involving two teachers from each school.

"Approximately 164,400 students in the three areas are now trained in earthquake evacuation procedures," said Kani. She claimed it was the largest disaster preparedness project ever held in Indonesia.

According to Kani, the ASB is planning to provide the training program to additional schools in Gunungkidul and Kulonprogo regencies, as well as 60 other schools for disabled students across the province.