Good Practice Guides for Emergency Education

This site provides a collection of short guides containing advice and guidelines for providing both formal and informal education to populations in crisis and post-crisis areas. It has been created on the premise that traditional education does not prepare communities with the life skills they need to live in these situations. Sppecific guides are provided for:

• Health;
• Landmine Awareness; and
• Peace Education.

The site offers general advice for providing emergency education programmes, including providing dedicated staff and schedules for teaching; adapting and vary materials for specific audiences; and ensuring accuracy of materials and information. For each of the three topical guides, the creators list strategies and methodologies for delivering programme content.

The health education guide explains the need for involving health professionals in developing education campaigns, and recommends a variety of communication strategies, including:

• health talks in the community and at health clinics
• posters
• brochures
• radio programmes
• newspaper articles
• school programmes
• song or writing contests
• peer education programmes

The landmine awareness section recommends programmes containing not only information on landmine identification, but how to live with landmines. It also recommends inclusion of victims of landmines within the programme. Suggested topics outlined include:

• Be aware of threat
• How to protect yourself
• What to do if you come across a landmine / UXO
• Behavioural change
• Landmine ban advocacy

The peace education guide points out the necessity of evaluating a community's readiness to discuss sensitive issues of peace and reconciliation. It provides a series of tips, including working with the community, building baseline and subsequent measurement indicators, assessing appropriate timing, and incorporating anecdotal evidence into the programme.