How can ICTs best be used to support educational reconstruction in Chile following the devastating earthquake there on 27th February?
The Chilean Ministry of Education has established a task force to design a strategy for using ICTs to help alleviate the educational challenge of having some 500,000 children out of school for weeks, or even months, until new schools are constructed. They need solutions that are practical, affordable and can be deployed rapidly.
A good friend of mine, Pedro Hepp from TIDE S.A, has been appointed to this task force and is eager to draw down on as much global experience as possible. Much work has been done on ways in which ICTs can be used in the immediate aftermath of earthquake disasters, such as
- Ushahidi‘s incident mapping
- Cisco’s best practices guide to disaster recovery
- The GAID community provided a series of suggestions following the Haiti earthquake
- Paper by Yasamin Izadkhah on Using ICT for Earthquake Disaster Risk Reduction in Iran (.pdf)
- Sristi‘s Disaster Management Information System
However, many of these initiatives focus on the immediate aftermath of earthquake disasters. Important as these are, the ’emergency’ aspects of Chile’s earthquake are now over, and the government is still facing the long haul of providing basic services to those who have lost so much. Now the spotlight of the international media has turned away from Chile, it is still important for people across the world to offer support and help to the victims of this devastating earthquake.
Please contact Pedro with advice and examples of good practices that have used ICTs in educational reconstruction following earthquakes elsewhere in the world.
[Photo from the BBC‘s site]
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