Less Is More: Proposed Home-School Disaster Risk Reduction Plan

Abstract

Disaster happens anywhere and anytime. It hampers economic growth, undermines social stability, and changes geographical characteristics. This research focused on crafting a home-school DRR plan through the collaborative initiatives of the University of Batangas and its students and families, thus strengthening the home-school partnership. Just like what is mentioned in the title, the less that is done through a home-school partnership, the more meaningful the impact. Specifically, this research determined the respondents’ DRR knowledge, practices, and strategies and measured the impact of the said strategies. The DRR plan and possible integration of DRR themes into the curriculum will improve the DRR efforts being made in every community where university students live. The target participants were 507 college students of the University of Batangas, selected via stratified random sampling with a 5% margin of error and a 95% confidence interval. Descriptive statistics were applied to analyze the gathered data, such as the weighted mean, percentage, frequency count, and standard deviation. The in-depth information gathered from the interview was integrated into the results. The findings were as follows: the DRR knowledge of the respondents and the DRR practices applied were observed to be of great extent. Meanwhile, the impact of such practices was evident for most items but strongly evident for items that concern family living and home routines. The DRR plan crafted out of the home-school partnership is intended to assist the barangay in the implementation of some identified initiatives. Of equal importance is the integration of DRR themes into the identified university courses (NSTP, STS, and PE).