Mapping Schools in Areas Prone to Natural Hazards in India: Understanding Context to Plan for Long-Term Benefit

Paik, Saswati and Tiwari, Pankaj (2017) Mapping Schools in Areas Prone to Natural Hazards in India: Understanding Context to Plan for Long-Term Benefit. In: International Expert Forum on Mainstreaming Resilience and Disaster Risk Reduction in Education, AIT, Thailand.

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Abstract

Mapping often plays a very important role to understand and identify vulnerable areas, risk zones and to predict the risks in any particular area. With the advent of mapping technologies, all the countries across the world have prepared numerous maps that show the hazardous zones, vulnerability, risk, etc. Still, there is a dearth of mapping in India at micro levels for some particular areas which are vulnerable and where vulnerability directly impacts the children in various ways. These are mainly school children in the areas prone to natural or man-made hazards. This paper poses an argument that mapping of schools in India is important to understand he context of schools within a community in a holistic manner. Mapping with basic database generation for schools is specifically relevant and useful in the challenging locations facing natural hazards because it not only helps to locate the schools, but also helps to design any appropriate change intervention as per the context which can be beneficial for the school children for generations. Context mapping is useful for understanding the community, and therefore, to accelerate the process of involving the community in participatory mode of approach to arrive at a context-specific solution. Such a practice can enhance the process of decentralisation following a path of devolution. While mapping the context, apart from mere technical and locational mapping, emphasis must be given to mapping all possible aspects that influence the local schools, schooling trends, processes and practices. The paper has discussed the process of mapping schools in a few disaster-prone areas of India. During the field study, the data were collected from the schools, local community and administrative functionaries. Here, an attempt has been made to explain how this mapping process and its final outcomes can help in regional planning for the schools for long term in various regions of India.

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Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Authors:

Paik, Saswati and Tiwari, Pankaj

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