Glossary Term

Life skills

Life Skills are those skills and abilities for positive behavior that enable individuals to adapt to and deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They help people think, feel, act, and interact as individuals and as participating members of society. Life Skills fall into three inter-related categories: cognitive; personal or emotional; and inter-personal or social. Life Skills can be general: for example, analyzing and using information, communicating, and interacting effectively with others. They may be about specific content areas such as risk reduction, environmental protection, health promotion, HIV prevention, prevention of violence or peace-building. The need for life skills often increases in situations of crisis, requiring increased emphasis on building life skills that are relevant and applicable to the emergency and local contexts.