Women’s summit tackles disaster risk reduction

OVER a hundred women leaders and advocates gathered on March 8 at Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, for the Women’s Summit.

The summit—conducted in celebration of International Day for Women and opened the National Women’s Month in the university—focused on the role of women in disaster risk reduction.

Women leaders from the 30 barangays i n Dumaguete and members of Local Council for Women (LCW) and the City Social Welfare and Development Office attended the whole-day seminar-workshop dubbed “Weathering climate change: Governance and accountability, everyone’s responsibility.”

Coordinating the seminar-workshop was the Gender Studies Center (GSC) of Silliman University, headed by Prof. Phoebe Tan.

Tan said this year’s women’s summit was intended to “help women adapt to climate change since they are the ones first affected by disasters and calamities, given their nature and traditional roles as homemakers and caretakers of family and children.”

Association of Barangay Captains chairman Albert Aquino in Dumaguete City served as the speaker during the morning session. He presented an assessment on the city’s disaster response during the Typhoon Sendong and related how the barangays were not prepared for such a natural calamity. He later discussed the importance of disaster preparedness and the role of women as agents of change, capitalizing on their capabilities in addressing climate change.

Participants also had “role playing” activities. They were grouped into four and were each assigned a calamity under which condition they needed to identify risks and come up with a disaster preparedness plan. They were later requested to act out scenarios and their works evaluated by some members of the LCW.