| In recognition of
the enlightening initiative by the “Natural
Disaster Youth Summit 2005 in Hyogo”, which was
proved successful with children’s positive
participation, the 2nd NDYS conference
was held in Taiwan in 2006 to advance the move.
The first
such conference was organized in Hyogo on May, 2004
in commemoration of the 10th
anniversary of Hanshin-Awaji earthquake disaster
(it occurred on January 17,1995 in the southern
part of Hyogo). It was intended to promote the
awareness of the devastation and to impress the
importance of saving lives in the minds of young
children sharing their experiences gained from the
similar perennial natural disasters in recent
years to pass them on to generation to generation. |
|
The third
world’s NDYS conference with children from all over
the world is being planned for May 2007 in Aichi, Japan
that is the region where the so named ”Tokai
Earthquake” or some sort of huge scale disaster is
forecasted to occur at any moment in the near future.
In preparation
for the conference, school children of the region are
now in the process of creating “Disaster Safety Map”
using internet communication, through which they are to
learn and to think over what they can do to alleviate
the effects of unavoidable natural disasters if and when
they occur. Thus it is our hope that they may be able to
make some contribution in future to improve the
vulnerability of their society under such situation.
Natural
calamities once occurred tend to be multiplied by the
hidden weakness in our living environment including
global warming climate causing inevitable damages
greater upon us. We
wish that the conference facilitates to create a kind of
synergy among participants to initiate some creative
activities to be better prepared against such perennial
problems.
This conference
is designed to encourage and to motivate people of the
world, wherever they may live or whatever disaster they
may be encountered, to improve their preparedness
against such natural calamities specific to each region
by way of having common shared concern shown on the
“Natural Disaster Map”
We hope, the
conference provides an opportunity to extend the network
of international communication or dialogue on disaster
education, empowering those who are actively involved in
the education on alleviating natural disaster which
leads us to create sustainable society as well.
In closing I
would like to emphasize that this project is intended
particularly for children to learn disaster management
through ICT (Internet Communication Technology) cross
cultural communication and that therefore requires lots
of supports from various sectors of society including
those of governmental administration branch offices,
institutions, industry, academia and variety of
specialist professional expertise.
We appreciate
very much the every possible support and contribution
from you, the all concerned.
Thank you.
| February
3, 2007
KOBE, Japan
|
|
Top of this page
|
