September 30, 2011
New Orleans, LA

FEMA partnered with the Louisiana State Citizen Corps to host an educational workshop on preparing the youth for disaster.

Chelsea Brown
Louisiana Citizen Corp Coordinator
Louisiana State Citizen Corps has parented with FEMA Region 6 as well as the American Red Cross and we are holding a Youth Preparedness Summit and we have invited participants from all over Louisiana as well as the other states in our region to join in the workshop and learn either how to start a youth program, a preparedness program or how they can better their program.

Tony Russell
FEMA Region 6 Regional Administrator
In this day in age when it comes to social media that’s what the youth do, our goal now is to make sure that we are able to attract the youth where they live where they play, what they listen to, so I think this is going to be a very important tool as we go forward.

Chelsea Brown
Louisiana Citizen Corp Coordinator
I think is so important to reach out to youth number one because they need to be prepared, I think is going to help if a disaster happens they’ll be less scared specially the younger children, what’s also because they are going to teach their parents, I think they have a lot of influence on their parents and if you teach them that they need a go kit or to be prepared and to have a disaster plan in their home, they are going to go home and bug their parents until their parents start doing  that themselves. So It’s a great way to reach out to adults as well, we also always hope to spark that interest in youth to maybe work in emergency management field or for a fire station or as a police officer and things like that it kind of gets their gears going because they are the future of tomorrow.


Tony Russell
FEMA Region 6 Regional Administrator

This to me shows commitment, it shows commitment for FEMA to be able to support our states in the whole community concept to ensure that we build our response, our recovery, preparedness, mitigation on the individual level not for the government but from the individual.
For more information visit:
wwwfema.gov
www.citizencorps.gov