CitySavings and WeatherPhilippines: Gearing up Educators for a #WeatherWiser Future
A total of 76 educators from different divisions of the Department of Education (DepEd) Region 7 became #WeatherWiser as they immersed themselves in a two day Weather 101 and Tropical Cyclone (TC) 101 workshop sponsored by City Savings Bank (CitySavings) in partnership with Weather Philippines Foundation Inc. (WeatherPhilippines) in DepEd Region 7 office last June 8 and 9.
Weather 101 and TC 101 is the answer to DepEd’s vision as well as WeatherPhilippines and CitySavings’ advocacy on learning about disaster preparedness. WeatherPhilippines Sustainability Specialist Margarette Lim further explained that “we chose DepEd because we want the information that will be acquired today to be passed on to the future generations. We don’t want being #WeatherWiser to stop in our generation only.”
DepEd Region 7 Director Juliet Jeruta encouraged the seminar participants as she said that “we should be raising the quality of education. This encompasses many factors—from the physical environment to the safety and protective mechanism that every school should have to foster parent’s trust in the school, ensuring the children’s safety and equipping them with knowledge.” She further mentioned that “we have to make all our learners face disasters in a way that they are calm and confident and they know what to do.”
With all these in mind, the educator participants immersed themselves in learning and understanding the complexities of the weather and the intricacies of cyclones. Education Program Supervisor (EPS) for Science Juvimar E. Montolo, attested on how indispensable the knowledge gained from the seminar was. Having experienced Typhoon Yolanda and witnessing its devastation, she observed that after the crisis “there was a realization from the students that we need to be prepared during calamities; that is why they need this information especially since there are misconceptions regarding storm surge, tidal waves and seismic sea waves and others.”
Lim further confirmed that “we do have weather updates however some of us might not be too familiar on the terminologies used. In fact when Typhoon Yolanda hit the Philippines, most of the death toll was attributed to a misconstrued understanding of a weather terminology.” She further reiterated the need for proactive involvement in calamities, emphasizing the fact that “typhoons are foreseeable and expected yet we are too reactive, and most of the budget goes to disaster relief efforts when in fact we could be proactive. Before the calamity hits, we could have the appropriate disaster preparedness action plan to minimize the damage.”
“An integral part of disaster preparedness is learning and acquainting ourselves with basic weather knowledge for everyone to know what to anticipate and how to act in times of calamities. We will continue to partner with DepEd and WeatherPhilippines to ensure that this weather knowledge is cascaded not only to educators but to their colleagues and especially to public school students nationwide.” said CitySavings Reputation Management Head Paula Ruelan.
To date, a total of 1,129 DepEd educators from Northern Luzon, NCR, Southern Luzon, Eastern and Central Visayas as well as Northern and Southern Mindanao are now geared up for a #WeatherWiser future through the Weather 101 and Tropical Cyclone 101 workshop by WeatherPhilippines in partnership with CitySavings.
