Children throughout the world are exposed to traumatic events such as sexual or physical abuse, severe accidents, cancer or other life threatening illness, natural or man-made disasters, war, terrorism, the sudden death of a parent or close friend or relative, among other things. Recently, natural disasters have caused property damage and loss of…

Emergency and conflict in countries such as Syria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan have made us more aware of the long-term serial disruption and psychosocial damage faced by people caught up in emergency and conflict areas. Open, distance and flexible learning (ODFL) has sometimes been employed in these regions to maintain a degree of…

Unstructured data in social media is as part of the "big data" spectrum. Unstructured data in Social media can provide useful insights into social phenomena and citizen opinions, both of which are critical to government policy and businesses decisions. Teachers of business intelligence and analytics commonly use quantitative data from…

Namibia has one of the most dehumanising and destructive colonial pasts of any nation in Africa, or, for that matter, the world. Before colonisation, the area now known as Namibia was home to diverse cultural groups. The successive colonial regimes of Germany and South Africa inflicted genocide, brutality and apartheid on the region. Namibia…

By nurturing empathy through a liberal education, educators can help their students understand their connections to other humans, animals, and the planet--and perhaps, eventually, find their way back to themselves. The author often use case studies in her undergraduate classes. The author wrote a new case study called "Toys for Haiti."…

Community awareness must be increased for communities to play an effective role in the mitigation of disaster damage. Education is the most effective way to accomplish this. It is important for people to know that even though they cannot intervene or prevent such events, they can take precautionary measures to reduce the damage caused by…

A severe earthquake occurred in Kashmir in 2005. The epicentre was close to Muzzafarabad. We collected data on over 1,100 children 18 months after the earthquake to look at symptoms of PTSD and behavioural and emotional problems using well established questionnaires. We found that 64.8% of children had significant symptoms of PTSD. Girls were more…

The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of trauma exposure on the posttraumatic stress symptomatology (PTSS) of children who resided near the epicenter of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. The mechanisms of this impact were explored via structural equation models with self-esteem and coping strategies included as mediators. The…

This study intends to investigate the fifth grade students' conceptions of earthquakes. Twenty two grade 5 students (11-12 years old) from five different elementary schools in Istanbul voluntarily participated in the study. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with each participant. Six interview questions were designed by…

While natural disasters have been reported internationally in relation to the injury burden, role of rescuers and responders, there is little known about the impact on education in adult professional populations. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake affected the Canterbury region of New Zealand on 4 September 2010 followed by more than 13,000 aftershocks in…

Incorporating National Incident Management System training and exercise principles into homeland security and emergency management learning can help university students develop emergency response capabilities through practical application of knowledge in simulated incidents. In addition, they gain team-building and leadership skills, establish…

An interactive mapping project is revolutionizing the way crises are reported and managed, and is spotlighting the value of citizen journalism. The project, called Ushahidi, which means testimony in Swahili, uses crowdsourcing (gathering information from a large number of people) to map crisis information. This crisis mapping tool has since been…

In the summer of 2011, the Forum on Education Abroad conducted its fourth State of the Field Survey. This survey is an annual or biannual assessment of the very latest trends and issues in the field of education abroad. As in the past, questions on new topics have been combined with questions that have been asked on previous State of the Field…

Social media networks have emerged as a powerful tool in allowing collaboration and sharing of information during times of crisis (Axel Bruns, The Centre for Creative Industries Blog, comment posted January 19, 2011). The 2011 Queensland floods provided a unique opportunity to explore social media use during an emergency. This paper presents the…

Many are fortunate never to have experienced the abrupt and devastating change a natural disaster can deliver, whether it be an earthquake, a tornado, or a wildfire. But one does experience similar hurt, pain, and loss in the waves of change that affect one's personal life. In a New York Times article on March 24, 2011, Martin Fackler describes…