Improving Western Balkan’s resilience to hazards by building capacity in higher education

Abstract

In recent years the number and severity of natural and man-made disasters, as well as fires, has significantly increased. The resilience of the Western Balkans societies to hazards has to be improved, and that can be done by introducing new study programmes and lifelong learning courses in educational offer. It will provide a sustainable educational foundation in the Disaster Risk Management and Fire Safety field in Western Balkans countries and ensure national highly skilled professional resources and regional capacity for a resilient society. The aim is to build regional-based disaster preparedness and a culture of safety and resilience at all levels according to EU Integration Strategies and National relevant strategies. Based on the above ideas, the project proposal Knowledge FOr Resilient society – K-FORCE was successfully prepared and selected for funding under ERASMUS+ programme Capacity Building in Higher Education – EAC/A04/2015. To become a resilient society, it is necessary to implement the EU Civil Protection Mechanism at a regional level and intensively cooperate and communicate, for which a new skilled young workforce is required, well prepared to cooperate in a multilingual and multicultural environment. The paper presents the results of a survey done among the youth in WBC in order to investigate the level of safety culture and a mutual level of understanding of the risks in their environment.

Keywords

• resilient society
• youth
• safety culture
• higher education