To celebrate the International Day for Disaster Reduction, the Mayoralty of Ungheni Town has organized on October 14, 2015 the roundtable `Being informed makes you stronger in the face of natural disasters`. The event has the purpose to educate the students from all schools in the town. Awareness activities for teachers and students on natural disaster-generating risks, how to behave during a disaster, as well as intervention measures during disasters have been organized for this purpose.  Moreover, a drawing contest on the topic Natural Disaster Risk Reduction has been organized.  As a result of the contest, twelve representative drawings have been selected for inclusion in a 2016 calendar.

The event was organized by the Ungheni Mayoralty and the Emergency Situations Division of Ungheni Town with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The UNDP support was provided via Disaster and Climate Risk Reduction in Moldova Project.

„Awareness raising and education activities of our citizens regarding the need to prepare for and prevent disasters are very important and needed. We would like to ask every person to pass this information and to actively participate in implementation of acquired knowledge. Thus, the civic activism and the information level of the population regarding the behavior during the disasters will increase”, mentioned Petru Langa, the deputy mayor of Ungheni.

One of the participants, Ana-Maria Mostovei, student at the High School “Mihai Eminescu” from Ungheni confirmed the importance of this even: “The exercise made to understand the importance of being prepared for disasters. Being informed and prepared today, I will be safe tomorrow.”

Similar exercises took place in Balti on October 12, 2015. The awards ceremony for the drawing contest dedicated to disaster prevention will take place on October 13 at the Security School of the Civil Protection and Emergency Situations Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

These events are organized in the context of the International Day for Disaster Reduction, declared on December 21, 2009 by the General Assembly of the United Nations as the day of October 13 of each year.  This is a contribution to global culture on natural disasters’ consequences reduction. The aim of the 2015 International Day for Disaster Reduction is to enhance abilities and promote knowledge for individual protection and protection of people around.