#WeatherWiser, is a social media training workshop for weather preparedness and disaster empowering bloggers and teachers from the Department of Education (DepEd) to create a #WeatherWiser mindset.
Every year, an average of 10-20 typhoons enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR). Annually, we also spend around Php 9-10 Billion on recovery initiatives. We need to change our approach to disasters and see a #ZeroCasualty result after every typhoon. But before achieving #ZeroCasualty, we need to build a #WeatherWiser Nation first.
The social media training is organized by WeatherPhilippines and Rappler in partnership with CitySavings and Cebu Pacific.
Here’s what we learned in creating a #WeatherWiser nation…
1. Disseminating localized weather information through a mobile app and website.
2. How to prepare and to maximize daily activities in the area, like checking the weather to bring an umbrella if it rains.
3. Using social media to spread awareness. The age of social media as a platform for action and change.
Social media acts as a digital prism for real human connections.
4. In this day and age, the sentiments of netizens become news.
Gone are the days when you only get the news from one authoritative source.
Crowdsourcing is a way of solving problems and producing things by connecting online with people that you otherwise wouldn’t know.
Communicating to a wider audience can bring fresh ideas and new solutions but can cause intense scrutiny and unintended consequences.
5. Social media had become an integral part of disaster response, filling the void in areas where cell phone service was bad and millions of Filipino looked to resources including Facebook to keep informed, locate loved ones, notify authorities and express support.
The workshop ended with a mockup typhoon disaster initiative in a collaboration between the teachers of DepEd and the bloggers.
Cheers to WeatherPhilippines for a successful workshop!
Live an Awesome Life,
Abi of Team Our Awesome Planet
Disclosure: Our experience was courtesy of Weather Philippines. We wrote this article with our biases, opinions, and insights.
P.S. Download the Weather Philippines Mobile App on Google Play store and App Store.
About Weather Philippines
WeatherPhilippines complements government’s nationwide efforts on disaster risk reduction, and aims to help build a #WeatherWiserNation that uses weather information for socio-economic and sustainable development.
Founded in 2012 by the Aboitiz Foundation, UnionBank, and Meteogroup, it delivers free, more localized, and accurate weather information accessed through weather.com.ph.
WeatherPhilippines provides the country with a premier weather sensing and forecasting system made possible by technology, inclusive partnerships, and communication.
As of 2016, WeatherPhilippines has deployed 780 Automated Weather Stations (AWS) nationwide, partnered with more than 568 LGUs and private sector companies, and has trained more than a thousand public and private sector partners on weather.
The AWS deployment and the weather trainings for LGUs are sustained by the annual donations of WeatherPhilippines’ platinum donors: SM, LBC, Ayala Group, VistaLand, Nickel Asia Corporation (NAC), and ICTSI International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI)
