EMERGENCIES: Non-discrimination in Emergencies – Training manual and toolkit

Save the Children has launched a new training manual for those involved in emergency response to improve their focus on the most powerless groups, and ensure that emergency responses are more effective.

Agencies who respond to emergencies are also in danger of maintaining or even worsening the entrenched exclusion and prejudice experienced by many people before an emergency. This may happen by default if action is not taken from the beginning to identify pre-existing and new patterns of discrimination and power, which must then be challenged in emergency responses.

Children, as an already powerless group, may be particularly at risk of discrimination in an emergency. These risks can be multiplied if children are subject to discrimination because they are girls, have a disability or are members of oppressed religious, ethnic or linguistic groups.

More than 60 million children and young people are affected by natural or man-made disasters every year, and an additional 40 million are acutely malnourished.

In some of the poorest and most fragile countries, millions of children are now growing up in families who are unable to feed them for some months of the year, and who depend on food and humanitarian aid. These chronic and acute food shortages have a lifelong effect on the health, education and employment prospects of children. Similarly, disasters and conflicts have immense impact on children throughout the world. Natural disasters appear to be on the increase due to climate change and the impacts of industrialisation. The immediate effects of man-made and natural disasters are devastating for children and their families. The results include disease and epidemics, severe malnutrition and stunting, psychological trauma, and lack of shelter, water, food, education and other basic necessities.

In the 1990s, two million children were killed as a result of conflict, six million were disabled or gravely injured, and one million orphaned or separated from their families. At least 300,000 children under the age of 15 are actively involved in conflict around the world today.

Facts:

• Children and young people often make up around half of those affected by an emergency, sometimes more.
• Emergencies act as magnifiers of existing vulnerabilities – particularly in the case of groups already subject to discrimination. Our experience tells us that certain groups, such as some religious and ethnic minorities, women and girls, and people with disabilities – who were on the edges of society and lacked decision-making power beforehand – face increased isolation and challenges when an emergency strikes. For many, the burden of multiple discriminations severely affects their life chances both during and after an emergency.
• Children and young people are often the most voiceless in a society before an
  emergency and after. Many agencies do not specifically highlight the rights of
  children in their responses.

This training manual and toolkit builds on the experiences of Save the Children’s work in emergencies across the world and is applicable to man-made or natural emergencies. It draws on the experiences gained in the 2004 tsunami response and this is reflected in many of the examples used. The publication aims to provide easy-to-use training materials and tools for highlighting discrimination with partners, communities and children in all emergency contexts.

The manual has three functions:

i. a manual for trainers who may be new to work on non-discrimination in emergencies, offering tips on designing training for diverse audiences;

ii. to provide exercises to raise awareness and increase knowledge about discrimination in emergencies;

ii. a toolkit of easy-to-use checklists and handouts for reference.

Working on discrimination

Work on discrimination is emotive. There are facts and figures outlining the statistics of discrimination and international legislation which provides a framework for tackling it. But it is the emotional dynamic and injustice of discrimination that participants must connect with to be effective advocates for change. It is all too easy to avoid the uncomfortable and painful experiences that can be evoked when examining attitudes towards those who are different from oneself. The aim of this manual is to provide a safe and structured way for staff to work within teams, and with partners and communities to challenge discrimination in emergency responses.
Use the handbook:

• When preparing for an emergency.
• When designing a ‘first response’.
• To learn lessons to improve implementation post-emergency.
• To strengthen community rebuilding after an emergency

To request a hard copy edition of the toolkit, email Tina Hyder at: [email protected]

Further information

• World Disasters Report 2007 - Focus on discrimination (January 2008)
• CRIN Newsletter 20: Child Rights and Emergencies (February 2007)