Promoting a culture of preparedness among children
Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), the wireless arm of Philippines’ leading integrated telco PLDT, supports the Department of Education’s (DepEd) initiative to integrate disaster risk reduction in the education curriculum by re-launching its Maging Laging Handa miniseries.
The video series covers precautionary measures and safety tips for various calamities such as typhoons, floods, tsunamis, storm surges, earthquakes, and landslides. “Educating the young is a necessary step in building a disaster-resilient nation since children are among the most vulnerable when calamities strike,” says Darwin F. Flores, Smart VP for Community Partnerships.
“The Maging Laging Handa series is Smart’s contribution to helping ensure that children are included in the disaster preparedness exercise so they would know what to do in the event of a disaster, of any type and scale,” Flores adds.
Reviewed and approved by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, materials include a DepEd co-developed teacher’s guide on how these videos can be integrated into curriculum.
Maging Laging Handa features Tonipet Gabba as online instructor; three puppets namely Inay Lena, a mother hen; Brownie, a dog; and Kali, a carabao; and all-original Tagalog songs aimed at making the learning journey richer and more exciting.
Episodes simplify disaster-related concepts like the typhoon signals, rainfall warning signals, and the differences between a storm surge and a tsunami.
Maging Laging Handa is among Smart’s free-to-download video resources suitable for teachers’ virtual classes needs. Aside from the disaster-readiness videos, other supplementary teaching materials include the LearnSmart e-Storytelling series and the gardening web series Kalye Mabunga.
All video resources released by Smart are aligned with the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELC) of the DepEd. e-Storytelling episodes were also enhanced to include Filipino sign language translation and in-depth analysis by a child psychologist at the end of each story.
Content are mostly in the mother tongue, as studies show that this facilitates better understanding and enhances the learning experience. This is all in keeping with Smart’s goal of providing original homegrown content in local languages to local communities.
Click on these links to access and download Maging Laging Handa http://bit.ly/MagingLagingHanda, and Smart’s other free video resources: http://bit.ly/KalyeMabunga, http://bit.ly/eStorytellingSessions.
For more information on Smart’s corporate social responsibility advocacies, visit www.facebook.com/SmartCommunities.
