Media campaign well done

During this year there has been on media campaign here, 'Bukan gempanya tapi bangunannya', which promotes good construction method and materials so that the house (=rumah) will stand the earthquake. This slogan was in TV stations, radio stations, papers, on murals, leaflets, even on bus, and on billboards like this. In our research, we have been asking on air, and also on questionnaires, whether the message has been understood. With few exceptions, yes, people here know the value of good construction in the long term.

In this town there are many NGOs helping in disaster mitigation, even on village level; many nagari (villages) heads know where the evacuation center is for their people. The research team (Reza on the rigth in photo), when visiting the nagari head, gave each nagari office a big brochure about disaster preraredness. By the way, those writings on the wall are statistics about the village. Nagari head fills it up as people die and are born, or move in or out. For national census gathering, it is easy for surveyors to pick up the data from nagaris. My only critique about Padang census was that it did not have any data on media ownership. Nagari heads estimate that about 20% - 30% of households have radios. But, it does not take into consideration that people also listen from their Phonsel (cell phone), and it is not pictured as a radio.