National launch of safe cities, schools and hospitals in Malaysia

At the initiative of its National Security Division (NSD), Malaysia celebrated National Disaster Awareness Day 2011 by launching the UNISDR World Disaster Reduction Campaign 2010-2011 "Making Resilient Cities" and pledging for the "One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals" initiative along with the hosting of ASEAN workshop on mainstreaming disaster risk reduction (DRR) in education.

The event was on two full days on 18-19 February 2011:

1) It started with short opening in the morning of 18th Feb, followed by a panel discussion on broad issues in DRR in Malaysia and South East Asia,
2) Three 1.5 day parallel sessions, one of which was the ASEAN mainstreaming workshop, and
3) The official launch of the campaign and closing ceremony in the afternoon of 19th February.

Participating organizations set up exhibition booths in the MITC complex which was opened for meeting’s participants and the public from 17 to 20th February.

Kualumpur, Melaka and Putrajaya signed up as Role Model Cities. The Ministers of Health and Education pledged as Champions for safety of schools and hospitals and were handed the plaques.

More than 11,000 schools and 3,900 hospitals pledged for safety.