Friday, 15 May 2009 - We recently conducted a study on the impact of the School Watching Workshop (SWW) to gauge how 68 SWW participants felt about the training programme.

We noted that more than 50 per cent of respondents agreed that SWW had changed their attitudes about the preparedness process - shifting from a reactionary response to one that involves risk reduction planning and process.

The survey also showed that 80 per cent of participants shared what they learned with their families, including discussing with them on what actions to take during emergencies.

We are extremely encouraged by the responses we found, which implies that the objectives of the programme - which was to increase participants' understanding of disaster risk reduction and to motivate them to train other students and teachers at schools - were achieved.

We plan to expand the programme to a wider region in Malaysia and are in the process of revising the SWW module and developing new materials.