School Community Engagement in Japan for Proactive Risk Reduction

In Japan, school plays a vital role in the community. A city is usually divided into school district, where school is the core of community. Regular joint disaster drills happen in school and school also has the community storage of disaster prevention goods (bousai shoko in Japanese). After the Kobe earthquake of 1995, the city of Kobe started Boukomi (bousai fukushi community, which is disaster prevention and social welfare community) around the schools in Kobe. After that several cities and rural areas also started school community joint programs on disaster risk reduction. Disaster memories fade over time. However, it remains in the people who experienced the disaster. It is very important for the lessons and memories to be transferred over years and generation. Thus, the legacy tellers play important roles in transmitting the experiences to the next generation, and this chapter will highlight some of these experiences from Japan. This chapter will summarize some of the key lessons emerging from school and community engagement in disaster and climate change.