Young people in Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand have been confronted in the past few years with a series of disasters of tremendous proportions. This paper reports on a regional forum on Disasters and the Aftermath held in Bangkok from April 30 - May 5, which aimed to engage young people from these three countries as active participants in dealing with future disasters. In particular, the forum aimed to:

provide a context for participants to exchange perspectives
allow young people to examine how life skills and other key approaches can be used to strengthen their capacity to cope with disasters
develop action plans to guide follow-on activities in participants’ respective countries.

The project also involved a series of consultations with other young people conducted in each country, the findings of which are included in the paper. Key points to emerge from the forum and consultations included the following:

participants felt it would be important to provide young people with information regarding the ways in which they can prepare for disasters as well as how to cope with the aftermath of such an event
participants felt that schools would need to play a central role in supporting the needs of young people in a variety of key areas
young people are very willing to play a role in addressing the issues discussed and felt that, with proper support, they could contribute to the following areas: dealing with disasters; improving school capacity and effectiveness; community activities; religious activities; advocacy; fundraising.