First Workshop with Disaster Survivors: From “Ready to Die” to “Equipped for the Next Event”

Our first workshop was in the Tanauan II Central School, site of one of the disaster tent cities.  For Americans, think of school as a very large picnic shelter.  It was made of concrete slabs and walls.  Parts of the roof was blown off and repaired with metal signs.  The windows were open to the air with grates over them.  We were lucky that there was a serious breeze going through the space.

We usually start our workshops with a disaster simulation.  We knew we couldn’t do that with recent disaster survivors.  We could not take the risk of re-traumatizing them.

Gabe started this large session of 24 teachers simply: Pair up with an unfamiliar partner and tell your experience of the first five minutes of the Super-Typhoon Haiyan.  Take care of your partner as they tell their story and really listen.  Then, rate yourself on a scale from 1 - 10 on how ready you are for the next disaster.

One teacher participant shared that she rated herself a “3” and ready to die.  Her typhoon experience was so overwhelming she couldn’t fathom doing anything that again and would prefer to die.  That was a sobering comment for us all to hear.

And then we went on with the workshop.  Our workshop takes participants through a series of “up and moving” theater improvisation games.  We generated more laughter through our games than we did in our previous workshops.  Dingdong observed: “Perhaps our participants were looking for something to laugh about.”  And I was glad we could bring the gift of laughter to a group that had serious challenges ahead of it.

At the end of the first workshop in Tanauan, that same teacher rated herself an “8” as ready for the next unimagined disaster.  She now said, “At the beginning of the workshop, I said I was a “3” and ready to die.  Through this workshop, I rate myself an “8” because this workshop gave me weapons to be ready for the next one.  Bring it on, I’m ready”.

This teacher made my trip to the Philippines worthwhile.  I thought this workshop could help prepare citizens for disaster.  And now a recent disaster survivor could see her own experience from a new point of view and as a way to be see herself equipped for the next one.

What I learned from this pilot phase was that the human imagination is a powerful tool to help citizens, emergency managers and elected officials ready for disaster.  Hooray!