T.N. students return from summit in Japan, call for awareness on disaster management

Awareness on disasters and their management are areas in which Tamil Nadu can do better, said students, who returned from the First International High School Students Summit held in Kumamoto, Japan, recently.

“The summit gave us the opportunity to learn more about the natural disaster tsunami. We learnt more about disaster prevention including systems that could warn people,” said S. Sivashakthi, Class XII student from Government Model Higher Secondary School, Nagapattinam.

A total of five students from various coastal regions of the country, including two from Tamil Nadu participated in the summit. The students are S Sivashakti, S Janavi of Government Higher Secondary School, Karaikal, Abhishek Samanthare of Odisha, Anshu Devanath of Nicobar and Vadulapatti Udaya Kumar of Andhra Pradesh.

In the week-long summit, the students learnt about the various systems in place to tackle Tsunami, visited areas affected by the disaster and how it’s being reconstructed. The students also visited a school to learn about the education system apart from presenting on their topic, disaster prevention. Students from 44 countries participated at the summit.

“In preparation for the presentation, the five of us would meet online through videocalls for the past six months. We’d also take inputs from our teachers regarding this,” said Janavi.S, a Class 12 student.

Sivasakthi had also interacted with victims of the 2004 Tsunami to get a deeper understanding of the aftermath of the disaster. “Our headmaster had narrated his experience during the Tsunami when he clung to a tree to survive it. We need to work more on disaster awareness and communication. The way Japan is reconstructing after a disaster, is an area that we should focus on,” he added.

Stating that the students would now be able to raise more awareness D.Brinda, government school teacher who accompanied the students, said, “The students would act as voices that raises awareness regarding natural disaster as they are better equipped now.”

Published - October 27, 2024 11:28 pm IST