Disaster preparedness of persons with Psyco-social disabilities in Urakawa, Japan -Use case of DAISY multimedia Tsunami preparedness manual-

1. Accessibility requirements of
tsunami evacuation manuals;
lessons learned from an on-site
research in Urakawa, Japan
Hiroshi Kawamura*, Mayu Hamada* and Ai Kawamura**
*Assistive Technology Development Organization
**EX Research Institute, Ltd

2. Bethel’s House
• People with psycho-social disabilities living
together in Urakawa town on the coast.

3. Had no skill of Tsunami evacuation
• When Tsunami came, a person with
schizophrenia frozen in her room and refused
evacuation.
• She said “I need to protect my things”

4. Manual made by themselves
• Conducted a training on how to make multimedia
manual to Bethel’s House members (people with
psychiatric disabilities)
– Choose evacuation route based on scientific
knowledge
– Walk evacuation route and take pictures (familiar
people, familiar place)
– Add instructional text
(their own words)
– Record audio (familiar voice)

5. Learn by brain and body
• Viewing multimedia manual together
(accessible to those with blindness, deafness,
dyslexia, psycho-social disabilities, &c.)
• Easy to;
– get interested
– concentrate
– understand

6. Learn by brain and body
• Going out for the evacuation drill
• 4 times a year (summer/winter, daytime/evening)

7. Outcome
On March 11th 2011, Bethels’ House members
served as a role model for Tsunami evacuation in
the community. There was no human casualties in
Urakawa in spite of a large property loss by 2.7m
tsunami attack.

8. Conclusion
Let’s change the mindset on those who are
“vulnerable” at disasters
from a burden to the asset of a community
through learning from good practices
and establish empowering policy to
promote practices at all levels that meet
the accessibility requirements of persons
with disabilities.