Women and Disasters Initiative

January, 1998

In 1998, the Association co-sponsored the first North American conference looking at the link between disasters such as earthquakes and floods and the dramatic increase of violence against women and children in the aftermath. After the conference, with funds from the Ministries of Women's Equality, Human Resources and Attorney General, we developed a report, Emergency Preparedness in British Columbia: Mitigating Violence Against Women in Disasters, directed at provincial authorities. This made recommendations for changes to the coordination of emergency and disaster response planning to ensure that women's and victim’s needs are incorporated, and that those organizations are being included at region planning tables. We also developed a workbook in 2001 to assist women and victim serving organizations in developing their own disaster response plans. We distributed this workbook across the province to all women and victim serving organizations and the Ministry of Economic Security and Social Development distributed it to all Emergency Social Service Directors. In addition, the Provincial Emergency Program has the workbook on their web site.
Download Emergency Preparedness in British Columbia: Mitigating Violence Against Women in Disasters (pdf)
Download Workbook