TAO-Pilipinas’ annual training and immersion program for students and new graduates focuses on the creation of disaster-resilient and sustainable communities

By Geraldine Matabang

“It’s very good to see young people get into disaster risk management.” This was the shared reaction of disaster risk management specialists Blenn Huelgas of UN-Habitat and Mayfourth Luneta of the Center for Disaster Preparedness on the first day of the 2006 Young Professionals (YP) Orientation Workshop on Social Housing held by TAO-Pilipinas on October 17 to 21 in Antipolo City.

The theme of the workshop for this year was “Young Professionals Working towards Sustainable Communities: Integrating Community-Based Disaster Risk Management in Social Housing.” The objective of the five-day workshop was to orient both design professionals and representatives of people’s organizations (POs) in actions and approaches that can contribute to enhancing the capabilities of communities, especially in social housing sites, to reduce and cope with the negative impacts of disasters. Disaster resilience is seen as one of the key characteristics of sustainable communities. Read more »