Dr. Glenn Fernandez, Associate Professor at SCU’s Institute of Disaster Management and Reconstruction (IDMR) has just received the highest honor for young people under the age of 40 from the Supreme Court justice in his home country, the Philippines on December 13, 2019. The TOYM Awards in the Philippines started in 1959. It was adapted from the TOYM Awards in the US. It is a national award with the selection process conducted by NGOs. Each year, out of a population of 105 million, ten are chosen in a competitive process as the “10 Outstanding Young Men and Women” for a given year.  This competition covers all fields, from arts and humanities, through business, through medicine, through science and engineering and through public service.  For 2019, Dr. Glenn Fernandez was cited for his contributions on “Youth Participation on Disaster Reduction”.

Dr. Glenn Fernandez’s Master’s thesis and PhD dissertation at the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies (GSGES) of Kyoto University were on school-based and community-based youth participation in DRR, respectively. Since 2009, Dr. Fernandez has been actively contributing to the scholarship on youth participation in DRR and has published a book, three journal articles, nine book chapters, and a handbook on disaster education. No other Filipino researcher has dedicated a sustained focus on this particular topic longer or in a more in-depth engagement than Dr. Fernandez. He has devoted himself to documenting the shortcomings of existing arrangements for youth participation in DRR and has put forward concrete and actionable recommendations to remedy the situation.

Dr. Fernandez’s research on and advocacy for youth participation in DRR is ongoing. His current related projects include “Monitoring and Rehabilitation of Mangroves by Youth Councils” funded by the Tokyo-based Takagi Fund for Citizen Science. Together with his collaborators from the National Institute for Geological Sciences of the University of the Philippines, the Department of Extension of Mindanao State University, and Saint Columban College, Dr. Fernandez strives to create opportunities and spaces for youth councils in the coastal villages of Pagadian, Philippines to be actively involved in restoring natural barriers like mangrove forests for protection as bio-shields against giant tsunami waves.

Dr. Fernandez is also currently working with Keio University, Japan; the Himalayan Universities Consortium; and U-INSPIRE, the new Asian platform for youth engagement in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for DRR, to create two compilations of case studies: (1) youth participation in disaster recovery in Asia and (2) formal mechanisms for youth involvement in DRR in Asian countries. He strongly advocates for providing guidance and specific examples of youth engagement in DRR to youth and youth-serving organizations to spark their imagination on what are possible, actionable, and effective.

Dr. Fernandez is an IRDR Young Scientist and is the current President of U-INSPIRE Philippines.  Dr. Fernandez joined IDMR in May 2018, after having earned a Masters’ and PhD at Kyoto University.  His undergraduate degree was from the University of the Philippines at Diliman in Industrial Engineering. We are very honored to have Dr. Fernandez on our staff at IDMR and pleased that he is successfully expanding his research on youth leadership in DRR across national boundaries with his new position with Sichuan University. At IDMR, Dr. Fernandez has expanded his research leadership roles on youth participation in disaster reduction. He has played a key role in developing our collaborations with UNESCO, UNDRR and other partners on building networks of youth and young professionals in disaster risk reduction research worldwide, through the U-INSPIRE Alliance.  He has also spearheaded a youth leadership sub-theme under the umbrella of our leading role on disaster risk reduction with the Himalaya University Consortium.  Dr. Fernandez has, furthermore, expanded his research activities to incorporate a focus on disaster waste management, in an exciting collaborative project with the Philippines and Fiji.  At IDMR, we are very proud of Dr. Fernandez’s accomplishments in such a short period of time and look forward to supporting him in his future career development.