Leaving No One Behind: Inclusive Climate Resilience in Greece

Key Learnings

• Engagement: Actively involving representatives from the disability community throughout the design, planning, and implementation phases led to tailormade exercises in preparing for climate-related challenges. Their input helped tailor evacuation strategies to real-life needs.
• Essential daily Items: It is important to secure essential items such as white canes, wheelchairs, and oxygen bottles during an evacuation. In case the rescue teams cannot save the essentials, the authorities should provide replacements immediately after a disaster.
• Diverse needs: Different disabilities require specific evacuation strategies. Emergency teams need to adjust their approach to support individuals with cognitive disabilities, mental health conditions, and hearing impairments.

Summary

The inclusive evacuation exercise in Athens demonstrated the importance of designing emergency plans considering the needs of persons with disabilities. The European Center for Forest Fires, the General Secretariat for Civil Protection, and the National Confederation of Persons with Disabilities/Institute of National Confederation of Persons with Disabilities and Chronic Diseases in Greece (ESAmea/IN-ESAmeA) have joined forces to prepare an exercise with the participation of persons with disabilities which can be used as a basis for organising similar exercises in the future, paving the way towards inclusive disaster resilience. The key takeaways highlight the value of early engagement of the disability community in designing, planning and implementing exercises, the necessity of securing essential items, and the importance of further developing evacuation strategies.

Contact

European Center for Forest Fires (EUR-OPA) (ECFF)

• Sofia Karma (Director ECFF, EUR-OPA/Council of Europe, and Academic Staff at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece)
  sofia [dot] karmagmail [dot] com (sofia[dot]karma[at]gmail[dot]com)

ESAmeA/IN-ESAmeA

• Ioannis Vardakastanis (President, ESAmeA/IN-ESAmeA/European Disability Forum), esaeaotenet [dot] gr (esaea[at]otenet[dot]gr)
• Evangelia Kallimani (Deputy Director, IN-ESAmeA), deputydirectorin-esamea [dot] gr (deputydirector[at]in-esamea[dot]gr)

Ministry for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection (GSCP)

• Efstathia Athinaiou (Head of the National Planning Department, GSCP, and member of ECFF), eathinaioucivilprotection [dot] gr (eathinaiou[at]civilprotection[dot]gr)
• Dimitrios Alexandris (Emergency Response Planning Director, GSCP, and member of ECFF), dalexandriscivilprotection [dot] gr (dalexandris[at]civilprotection[dot]gr)