Youth in School Safety

The Malaysian Red Crescent (MRC) highly recognises the specific role of youth not only as the future leaders, but also as leaders and agents of positive change of today for playing particular role in building and sustaining communities that are based on respect and solidarity. In line with Strategy 2020, through the MRC Youth Policy and Youth Engagement Strategy, the MRC increasingly recognize the importance of investing in education, empowerment, and creation of an enabling environment for young people to bring positive change within themselves and to their societies. Youth empowerment is a cornerstone of building safe and resilient communities.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 recognized children and youth are agents of change and called upon all heads of the states and government, ministers and all stakeholders that children and youths should be given the space and modalities to contribute to disaster risk reduction, in accordance with legislation, national practice and educational curricular.

ASEAN also become increasingly active in School Safety with the launch of the ASEAN Safe Schools Initiative (ASSI) and the organization of the ASEAN Conference on School Safety which witnessed the endorsement of the school disaster management guidelines. There is a wider recognition from partners of the potential impact the Red Crescent Youth (RCY) and volunteers carry in order to sustain and scale up school safety initiatives across ASEAN member states.

Building on top of such global framework, MRC and Youth’s initiative, the “Youth in School Safety” (YSS) initiative was designed for a purpose of youth empowerment at schools to strengthen the bonds between school children & RCY, teachers and parents in their specific roles in school safety by equipping them with basic knowledge and skills for School-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (SBDRR).