News Release
For Immediate Release
Is your university ready to protect the lives of students, staff and faculty during an emergency?
Hong Kong, 6 September, 2016 – Is your university ready to protect the lives of students, staff and faculty during an emergency? Is your university capable of providing support to local governments and communities during such crises? These are the questions that the Association of Pacific Rim Universities’ (APRU) Multi-Hazards (MH) Program aims to help universities with replying a resounding “yes”.
The APRU MH Program led from the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan and other member universities across the Asia-Pacific, are collaborating to build safer and more resilient societies on the ‘Ring of Fire’ which are susceptible to tsunami, floods, earthquakes and volcanic activity. Through education and research, the Multi-Hazards program has succeeded in enhancing disaster preparedness measures on campuses and improving dialogue with governments, industry and civil society.
At the 1st UNISDR Asia Science and Technology Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) the MH program’s strong recommendation to include the importance of disaster management plan by universities was adopted in the outcome paper. This policy document will be shared with policymakers at the Asian Ministerial Conference on DRR 2016 in November to progress the campus safety agenda.
“This is great progress with a lot of potential to move the universities toward developing better disaster plans and training”, said Amy B. Aiken who is the Director at the Department of Emergency Management, Florida International University.
The success of the MH program’s efforts at the recent conference also reflects the growing importance of academia’s role in the science-policy interface. Dr Takako Izumi, APRU Multi-Hazards Program Coordinator, said, “there is no other organisation advocating and addressing the need for measures like we did. It highlights that the Multi-Hazards program is not only doing research but also has been actively involved in regional and international discussion and contributing to the implementation of the Sendai Framework”.
The APRU Multi-Hazards Campus Safety Working Group consists of representatives from Chulalongkorn University, Florida International University, National University of Singapore, Osaka University, Tohoku University, University of Sydney and University of the Philippines.
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For additional information, please contact:
Ashley Pereira
Communications Manager, APRU
Tel: +852 3469 2550
Fax: +852 2719 5756
Email: [email protected]