What is PASSA?
Participatory Approach for Safe Shelter Awareness (PASSA) is a participatory method of disaster risk reduction (DRR) related to shelter safety. The aim of PASSA is to develop local capacity to reduce shelter related risk by raising awareness and developing skills in joint analysis, learning and decision-making at community level. PASSA is a process, facilitated by volunteers, that guides community groups (called PASSA groups in this manual) through eight participatory activities which enable the participants to do the following progressively:
Develop their awareness of shelter safety issues in their community
Identify hazards and vulnerabilities that create risk related to shelter
Recognize and analyse causes of shelter vulnerability
Identify and prioritize potential strategies to improve shelter safety
Make a plan to put those shelter safety strategies into place, based on local capacities
Monitor and evaluate progress.
Designed as a shelter risk reduction tool, PASSA can also be regarded as a tool to progress from the shelter relief phase to more long-lasting and sustainable reconstruction solutions, empowering people to communicate their demands and to understand the impacts of each of their choices.
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here to see a short YouTube video about PASSA.