Building national people-centered early waing systems (EWS) is strongly recommended by the United Nations Inteational Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).Most of the scientific literature is critical of the conventional view of EWS as a linear model with a topdown approach,in which technological features are given more attention than human factors.It is argued that EWS should be people-centered,and used for risk prevention,with an emphasis on resilience,rather than only being triggered when a hazard occurs.However,both the UNISDR and the literature fail to say how a people-centered EWS should be built,and what steps are needed to put EWS into effect.This article examines the obstacles and measures required to promote people-centered EWS,with a focus on the situation in Brazil.After assessing the institutional vulnerability of EWS,we analyze some measures that can be taken to reduce institutional vulnerability,based on experiences with a participatory citizen science educational project that involved high school students.Some guidelines are developed for adopting a bottom-up approach towards achieving the four elements of EWS-risk knowledge,monitoring,communication of waings,and response capability-with the help of school curricula.