This Participants Manual is a reference resource to be used in the "Joj blong yumi i help long taem blong disasta" training program together with the Facilitators Manual. The training program teaches Christian Church leaders and groups in Vanuatu about disaster management.
Christian Churches in Vanuatu are a strong network that can help all people (not just their own members) before, during and after a disaster. The activities in the training program teach Church leaders to work with all in their community to prepare and respond to natural disasters.
Assessment of weaknesses and opportunities regarding Port Vila's vulnerability to climate change and disaster risk.
There is no doubt that our climate is changing. This will
pose huge challenges to nations, organisations, enterprises,
cities, communities and individuals. Developing
countries will suffer most from the adverse consequences
of climate change, and some highly vulnerable regions
and people are already being affected.
There is increasing agreement that if temperatures rise
by no more than 2 °C the earth’s integrity can be preserved
and many of the potentially grave consequences
of climate change could be avoided. This threshold is
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,
as is now evident from observations of
increases in global average air and ocean temperatures,
widespread melting of snow and ice,
and rising global average sea level.”
At the first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) held in Berlin in 1995, Atiq
Rahman of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies gave an
impassioned speech to the delegates and warned, “If climate change makes
our country uninhabitable . . . we will march with our wet feet into your
living rooms.”1 Climate change related impacts such as floods, tsunamis,
hurricanes, and drought have already caused millions of people around the
Every person has the following fundamental duties to himself and his descendants and to others to protect the Republic of Vanuatu and to safeguard the national wealth, resources and environment in the interests of the present generation and of future generations (Art. 7d, Constitution of the Republic of Vanuatu).