The guide is designed to help humanitarian and development practitioners enable children themselves to participate in disaster‑risk reduction (DRR) efforts — rather than treating children simply as passive beneficiaries. It promotes a “child‑led” approach: children are invited to identify risks, propose solutions, and take part in planning and implementing DRR activities. The idea is to recognise children’s capacity, experiences and perspectives — rather than working only from adult assumptions of what children need.
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Child-led disaster risk reduction: a practical guide
General Information
Save the Children Italia
This guide provides practical strategies for engaging children as active participants in disaster risk reduction. It frames children not merely as vulnerable groups but as agents capable of contributing ideas, identifying risks, and supporting community preparedness. Through participatory methods, case studies, and hands-on activities, the guide demonstrates how children can be meaningfully involved in planning, prevention, and resilience-building at the community level. It also highlights the importance of collaboration and coordination among communities, volunteers, and organizations, ensuring that children’s involvement is safe, ethical, and effective. By fostering both empowerment and resilience, the guide encourages integrating child-led approaches across all stages of disaster management, from preparedness to recovery, so that communities benefit from their insights while children develop confidence and skills to respond to risks.
Children are often disproportionately affected by disasters, yet traditional disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches tend to view them primarily as vulnerable recipients rather than active contributors. Recognizing this gap, Save the Children developed this guide to shift the perspective: children can be engaged as capable agents who identify risks, propose solutions, and participate in strengthening community resilience.
The guide arises from the increasing global emphasis on child participation in humanitarian and development work, reflecting lessons learned from disaster responses worldwide. It draws on experiences in diverse communities, showing that involving children in DRR not only improves preparedness and prevention outcomes but also fosters empowerment, skills development, and long-term resilience.
The context also includes the need for practical tools and structured approaches that practitioners, NGOs, and community workers can use to safely and effectively facilitate child-led DRR activities across different hazards, such as earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and water-related risks.
Needs Addressed
Traditional disaster risk reduction approaches often view children primarily as vulnerable recipients of aid, overlooking their potential as active contributors to community safety and resilience. This adult-centered perspective can result in less effective risk identification, context-appropriate solutions, and missed opportunities for empowering children. The guide addresses this problem by promoting a child-led, participatory approach, enabling children to safely identify hazards, contribute ideas, and take part in DRR activities, thereby strengthening both their skills and the resilience of the communities in which they live.
The guide is entirely focused on engaging children as participants in DRR, recognizing their vulnerabilities but emphasizing their agency.
The guide emphasizes local ownership, empowering communities and children to actively identify risks, plan, and implement DRR activities. Participation at the village, school, or neighborhood level is central. The guide encourages collaboration between children, families, local authorities, NGOs, and volunteers. This ensures activities are safe, coordinated, and sustainable while giving children meaningful roles.
The guide focuses on engaging children and communities in risk identification, awareness, and early planning activities. It provides tools and participatory methods to improve preparedness but does not assume fully formalized or advanced DRR systems.
The guide focuses on community-level preparedness, hazard awareness, and participatory activities rather than on technical or highly engineered infrastructure. It encourages simple, practical measures to reduce risks (e.g., safer school layouts, evacuation routes, local hazard mapping).
The purpose of engagement in the guide is to empower children as active contributors to disaster risk reduction. By participating in risk identification, planning, and preventative activities, children develop knowledge, skills, and confidence while strengthening community preparedness. Engagement ensures that their perspectives are meaningfully integrated alongside adults, volunteers, and local authorities, fostering a sense of ownership, responsibility, and collaboration in building safer, more resilient communities.
The guide engages children through participatory, interactive, and child-centered methods, including workshops, hazard mapping, scenario exercises, and simulations to identify risks and practice preparedness. Creative approaches such as games, storytelling, and drawing help children understand hazards while developing problem-solving skills. Small-group discussions, community awareness activities, and reflection on real-life case studies further ensure that children’s perspectives are integrated meaningfully into disaster risk reduction efforts.
In the guide, children are granted a high degree of influence and decision-making in disaster risk reduction activities. They actively contribute to identifying hazards, planning preventive measures, and implementing preparedness strategies, with their input meaningfully integrated into community-level decisions. While adults provide guidance and support, children are treated as partners, ensuring that their perspectives and ideas directly shape outcomes rather than serving only in advisory or tokenistic roles.
The guide fosters capacity-building and long-term empowerment by equipping children with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to participate actively in disaster risk reduction. Through participatory activities like hazard mapping, workshops, and community engagement, children learn to identify risks, plan preparedness measures, and solve problems collaboratively. This involvement not only strengthens immediate community resilience but also develops leadership, advocacy, and collaborative skills, enabling children to continue contributing to safer, more resilient communities over the long term.
Hazard Type
Geographical Scope - Nuts
Population Size
Population Density
Vulnerable Groups
Governance
Emergency Preparedness
Infrastructure Readiness
Engagement Level
Empowerment Level
Implementation
The guide’s key innovations focus on child-led, participatory disaster risk reduction, treating children as active agents rather than passive recipients. It employs hands-on methods like hazard mapping, scenario exercises, and games, while integrating children’s activities with broader community engagement involving families, schools, and local authorities. Practical tools, case studies, and adaptable approaches enable implementation across diverse contexts, and emphasis on empowerment and resilience helps children build leadership, problem-solving skills, and confidence for long-term community impact.
English
Save the Children
Save the Children has extensive global experience in disaster risk management, particularly through programs that engage children as active participants in risk assessment, preparedness, and community resilience. The organization implements community-based DRR initiatives in schools, villages, and urban neighborhoods, integrating local knowledge and child-led strategies. It also provides training, tools, and capacity-building for staff, volunteers, and communities, while contributing to evidence-based practices through research, reports, and knowledge-sharing resources.
Actors involved include:
- Children: the primary actors, actively identifying hazards, contributing ideas, and participating in preparedness and risk-reduction activities.
- Families / Caregivers: support children’s participation, provide guidance, and help implement safety measures at home and in the community.
- Schools / Educators: facilitate learning, organize participatory activities, and integrate DRR awareness into education.
- Local Community Members: collaborate with children in mapping risks, planning preparedness activities, and implementing solutions.
- Volunteers: assist in organizing and supporting child-led activities safely and effectively.
- Local Authorities / Municipal Officials: provide coordination, guidance, and resources, ensuring that activities align with broader community DRR strategies.
- Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): facilitate capacity-building, provide training, tools, and technical support, and help document lessons learned.
Implementation steps include:
- Identify target communities and assess local hazards while ensuring ethical safeguards for child participation.
- Introduce children to disaster concepts and raise awareness through participatory activities.
- Facilitate hazard mapping and vulnerability analysis with children to identify local risks.
- Support children in proposing solutions and integrating their input into preparedness plans.
- Conduct workshops, drills, and simulations to develop children’s skills and confidence.
- Carry out child-led initiatives such as awareness campaigns, drills, or small-scale mitigation projects.
- Review activities, gather lessons learned, and encourage children to reflect and suggest improvements.
- Embed child-led DRR approaches into ongoing programs to ensure lasting skills, leadership, and community resilience.
The guide requires a sustainable mix of internal and external resources to implement child-led disaster risk reduction effectively. Local resources such as schools, community spaces, teachers, volunteers, and the active participation of children provide the foundation for day-to-day activities, while external support from NGOs, local authorities, or international partners supplies training, technical guidance, manuals, toolkits, and occasional materials or funding.
The guide provides a stepwise, phased approach for implementing child-led DRR, including preparation, engagement, risk assessment, planning, capacity building, implementation, monitoring, and sustainability.
Experience of the Implementing Organisation in DRM
Target Audience
Resources Required
Timeframe & Phases
Participation Results
The guide demonstrates that child-led, participatory DRR is feasible and effective when implemented thoughtfully, with proper safeguards, community support, and ongoing reflection to enhance learning and sustainability.
The guide identifies challenges such as ensuring meaningful child participation, safeguarding children, limited resources, cultural and social barriers, coordination with adults, and sustaining long-term engagement. To address these, it recommends adaptive strategies including participatory and empowering methods, child protection measures, optimizing local and external resources, culturally sensitive approaches, collaborative frameworks with families and authorities, and embedding DRR activities into ongoing school and community programs to ensure safety, inclusivity, and sustainability.
The guide focuses on community- and child-specific risks, helping children and communities identify local hazards and develop practical, context-specific mitigation measures.
Risk & Mitigation Plan
Scalability and Sustainability
The guide emphasizes community-led and integrated approaches, embedding child-led DRR into schools, community programs, and local preparedness initiatives. Continuous capacity-building, adaptive methods, and participatory practices ensure that knowledge, skills, and engagement are maintained over time. Regular reflection and feedback, combined with collaboration with NGOs and local authorities, provide ongoing support while preserving local ownership, enabling child-led disaster risk reduction activities to endure and evolve sustainably.
The guide is designed to be highly adaptable and scalable, with modular, participatory activities that can be tailored to different ages, community sizes, cultural contexts, and hazard types. Its flexible approach allows implementation in urban, rural, or peri-urban settings, using local resources supplemented by external support as needed.
The guide primarily focuses on participatory, hands-on, and low-tech methods such as hazard mapping, workshops, games, and scenario exercises.
Direct costs are low to moderate, primarily covering materials for participatory activities, training sessions, workshops, and small-scale drills. Most expenses are supported by local schools, community spaces, and volunteers, while NGOs or local authorities may provide supplementary guidance materials or minor logistical support.
Operational costs for implementing the guide are moderate and flexible, relying primarily on local resources such as schools, community spaces, volunteers, and facilitators. External support may provide training, manuals, toolkits, and occasional materials, but high-cost infrastructure or technology is not required.
The guide shows that child-led DRR initiatives can be scaled and sustained when communities take ownership, activities are integrated into schools and local programs, and methods are adaptable to different contexts and hazards. Continuous capacity-building for facilitators, teachers, and volunteers, along with reflection and feedback, supports replication and long-term engagement. Combining local resources with targeted external support ensures financial and logistical sustainability, enabling programs to expand effectively while maintaining meaningful child participation and community resilience.