Thursday, March 15th, 2007

Disaster Mitigation Education and Risk Awareness: GRIPS,BRI Hold International VC Conference

Research Institutions Worldwide Connect to Share Case Studies

The National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) and The Building Research Institute (BRI)Japan held an international conference on “Disaster Mitigation Education and Risk Awareness” on March 15, 2007 at the TDLC.

The session was organized in cooperation with the United Nations Center for Regional Development (UNCRD); Asia Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC), Japan; Institute of Technology Banding (ITB), Indonesia; Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), India; NSET-Nepal, Nepal; Preston University, Pakistan; and Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Turkey.

Connecting were 7 sites including the research institutions above as well as the BRI in Tsukuba and the TDLC.

The Conference consisted of two parts. Part 1, on Disaster Mitigation Education,gave experts from research institutions around the world an opportunity to report on the status of disaster mitigation education in various settings, such as primary and junior high schools, the community, and in various countries.

In Part 2, on Risk Awareness, opening remarks were made by Prof. Kenji Okazaki (GRIPS, Tokyo) on “Field Survey on Risk Perception”. Research institutions in 4 countries -Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Turkey- that collaborate with GRIPS reported on a survey on earthquake risk awareness in their respective countries.