Disaster Resilience and Children: Managing Food Security in Zimbabwe's Binga District

Siambabala Bernard Manyena
Maureen Fordham
Andrew Collins
Disaster and Development Centre
School of Applied Sciences
Northumbria University, UK

Citation: Manyena, Siambabala Bernard, Maureen Fordham and Andrew Collins (2008). "Disaster Resilience and Children: Managing Food Security in Zimbabwe's Binga District." Children, Youth and Environments 18 (1): 303-331. Retrieved [date] from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/

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Abstract

The growing recognition of the vulnerability of children to disasters has added a new impetus to the concept of their involvement in disaster risk reduction programs. Involving children in disaster risk reduction is among those aspects promoted in the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 to enhance the resilience of disaster-affected communities. This article presents the results from a research study which investigated the involvement of children in disaster risk reduction programs in Binga District, Zimbabwe, focusing on food security. The results suggest that children are an invaluable part of human agency in disaster contexts, especially in view of increasing numbers of children orphaned by HIV and AIDS. Yet their involvement is still contested. Unless family and cultural pressures imposed on children are recognized and managed in disaster risk programming, the potential of children’s involvement is likely to be missed in building disaster-resilient communities.

Keywords: Binga, Zimbabwe, children, disaster resilience, disaster risk reduction