In Ashley Stout’s UN-Day lightning talk, Ashley shares findings from her Georgetown University research exploring how children ages 7–14 imagine helping their communities during disasters, and how adults shape their opportunities to contribute. Through conversations, visual prompts, and drawings, children imagined caring for neighbors, designing emergency shelters and medical facilities, and supporting families through recovery. Yet children also acknowledged that they sometimes hesitate to share their ideas. Building on these findings, Ashley explores how children's perspectives might inform Boulder County's ongoing Hazard Mitigation Plan update, with a potential second phase focused on co-designing a preparedness activity. Her work draws on Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Sendai Framework, and SDG 16.7, inviting us to reconsider whose voices help shape community resilience.
