UP to offer disaster resilience courses

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines (UP) will start offering disaster resilience courses this month for climate action professionals and disaster risk reduction practitioners.

UP said the courses, which would be offered online starting Jan. 15, were designed for crisis managers, climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) practitioners and climate action stakeholders.

The series of microcourses to be offered by the UP Open University’s open and distance learning modality “can be taken “as standalone courses and be eventually credited to a diploma or even a master’s degree,” UP said.

UP president Angelo Jimenez stressed that universities need to bring home the message to the communities that climate action or climate justice is the greatest moral imperative of this generation.

“What is required is climate justice. There has to be equity as well,” he said.

Jimenez challenged academics and researchers to be effective communicators and maximize their creativity in building a scientific culture or a culture of science.

Professor Ruben Gamala, UP Resilience Institute’s director for education, said the program is a “welcome” opportunity for CCA-DRR professionals to seek continuing education, especially since most of them cannot leave their workplace or communities to study.

Apart from professionals in the CCA-DRR sectors, UP said those in underserved sectors and other stakeholders could also make use of the knowledge in the courses to enable them to build resilience in their respective communities.

Office of Civil Defense Undersecretary Ariel Nepomuceno expressed hope that the online courses will capacitate more CCA-DRR professionals who will engage more people in creating safe, sustainable and resilient communities.