Strengthening the Role of Women in Disaster Management
Before the breakup of Yugoslavia, civil protection and first aid training courses were common and widespread. All employees, as well as pupils and students, were trained for adequate emergency response. With the collapse of the country, in the early 1990s, this useful practice was abandoned. When a powerful earthquake hit the Serbian city of Kraljevo in 2010, local resident Milena Brkovic wished she could have provided more help to those injured and in need of assistance during the crisis.
I was devastated by the fact that I couldn’t provide first aid to my neighbours who suffered serious injuries and whose house was destroyed in the earthquake.
The extent to which Disaster Risk Reduction (DDR) training courses were needed in Serbia at the local level became clear in 2014 when catastrophic flooding hit the country, in which 51 people lost their lives and tens of thousands were evacuated from their homes.
Although natural disasters affect the entire population, certain categories of people, such as children, persons with disabilities and women, are especially vulnerable.
Women more affected by natural disasters
The study Gender Analysis of the Impact of the 2014 Floods in Serbia, published with the support of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, confirmed that women are more affected by natural disasters than men, since they lack the skills and techniques for effective emergency response. Single women, or women with children, are at greater risk than households with male members. Men are typically better prepared to respond in emergencies due to their military training and better physical readiness.
Aneta Dukić, project co-ordinator at the civil society organization (CSO) Phenomena in Kraljevo, explains that the research they conducted after the flooding in 2014 showed that women felt frightened, physically unprepared and poorly informed. “Although it is they who take care of children and elderly during crises, they felt helpless and had to wait for the local emergency services or neighbours to arrive,” says Dukić.
The findings of the survey prompted Phenomena to initiate disaster risk reduction (DRR) training courses for women in three Serbian cities which are particularly susceptible to natural disasters – in Kraljevo, Požega and Užice. This was the first civil protection training at the local level in Serbia that mainstreamed a gender perspective. Gender mainstreaming was recognized as an integral element of building disaster-resilient communities.
The activities carried out in the training courses were in line with the new Serbian Law on DRR and Emergency Management, and in accordance with the Sendai Framework for DRR 2015-2030, adopted by the UN member states in 2015. This global agreement to reduce and prevent disaster risks particularly recognizes the importance of the gender dimension and calls for the inclusion of all of society, including vulnerable groups, in DRR. The participation of women, youth, CSOs and citizens in disaster risk management is specifically recommended by the Sendai Framework.
Another publication by the OSCE Mission to Serbia has become popular amongst citizens: the Family Guide for Emergency Preparedness and Responses, produced together with the Ministry of the Interior. To raise awareness among children and young people about DDR, some elements of the Family Guide were incorporated into the illustrated Manual on Basics of Child Safety, which was printed and distributed to students across the country.
“Thanks to this manual children from an early age can learn how to reduce the risk of starting fires, how to act in case of a fire, floods and earthquakes. The OSCE Mission supported the booklet’s translation into eight minority languages – Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Ruthenian and Slovak – to ensure that children in all of Serbia’s ethnic communities can profit from the information,” said the Acting Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, Joseph Mellott.
To make it more accessible to young people, it was also produced as a mobile application.
Raising the emergency preparedness of women
Thanks to a partnership between civil society and local self-governments’ municipal emergency management units, more than 30 workshops on disaster response were held for around one hundred women in the first part of 2019. They were supported by the OSCE Mission to Serbia and the Government of Sweden within the project Consolidating the Democratization Process in the Security Sector in Serbia.
The workshops were an ideal opportunity for women to acquire the skills needed for efficient response to emergencies, which have been shown to be lacking.
Since findings showed that less than a quarter of women knew how to perform first aid, this type of training was also included in the workshop. Now, all of the attendees know not only how to perform basic first aid, but also how to react promptly in emergency situations such as fire incidents, earthquakes or floods.
Milena Brković, who felt helpless during the earthquake in Kraljevo, is now very pleased with what she has learned:"I am now confident that I would be able to provide first aid to someone who has a minor or medium injury. This workshop also helped me to recall skills I had gained a long time ago in ex-Yugoslavia."
We all had the opportunity to learn how to operate a fire extinguisher. Now I am equipped with invaluable knowledge of how to stop the spread of fire and how to improve safety for children if there is a fire incident. We got some very useful tips on how to evacuate the kids from the school safely in case of emergency.
Equipping women with skills for prompt reaction in emergency situations led to another significant achievement. They are now ready to take a leadership role in crisis situations.
Women take the leadership roles in emergencies
The completion of training enabled Radeta not only to raise her preparedness for emergencies, but also to become the team leader for civil protection in her school. She was appointed Officer for Civil Protection in the „Vuk Karadzic“ primary school in Kraljevo where she teaches. The school is the first in Serbia to have adopted this practice, which is in accordance with a new Serbian regulation that stipulates that all public institutions have to appoint Officers for Civil Protection.
Her duties include preparation of DRR plans for the school, practising emergency evacuation drills with children and organizing classes on safe behaviour in emergencies featuring presentations by firefighters, policemen and members of local civil protection teams.
“The success of the workshops is twofold, not only are women from western Serbia now better prepared for emergency situations and included in local civil protection units as leaders, but they are also trained in accordance with the gender mainstreaming approach. It is known that during crises women face different problems than men,“ emphasizes Aneta Dukić of the CSO Phenomena
Phenomena is one of dozens of civil society organizations in Serbia that have the support of the OSCE Mission in Serbia and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency for the implementation of various activities in the field of security, including strengthening the safety of women and young people, improvement of security in local communities and development of sectoral security regulations, says the OSCE Mission to Serbia’s National Project Officer, Miroslav Kragić.
The DRR training courses for women organized by the CSO Phenomena have shown that a strong partnership between civil society organizations and local self-government can significantly contribute to mainstreaming a gender perspective in local DRR policies.
The local self-government in Kraljevo intends to go a step further. As the follow-up to this successful training course, the local authorities will organize further training for all women who are appointed Officers for Civil Protection.
