CSS First Step or School Watch
Child-centred social accountability and participatory risk governance / advocacy & awareness
Purpose
The purpose of this tool is to encourage child-centred social accountability, and to engage children and community members in participating in early appraisal of school safety – contributing to good governance through local engagement in participatory disaster risk management.
1st Step is an Android and IOS smart-phone app for engaging local interest and advocacy from students and community-members, and crowd-sourcing this data for inputs to duty-bearers with local government, risk management and education authorities.
Users may download the app from Google Play or the Apple App Store. After downloading, the user registers and identifies the school to be assessed and answers about 15 survey questions. These questions cover: hazards exposure, learning facilities, school disaster management, and risk reduction and resilience education. Users can add photos of hazards, damage, and activities for risk reduction and response-preparedness.
When there is Internet connection and the data is posted to the portal managed by the sponsor, the user receives immediate feedback. The user receives an e-mail presenting the results of his/her survey, along with recommendations for further inquiry and safety steps. Survey data can be shared automatically with education authorities.
Administrator can provide permissions to access to the Web-based portal where data may be examined and queried for programming, planning and response.
School Watch is a similar tool developed for the Philippines, and used by the Department of Education there.
