Disaster

Manageme

nt

Community Based

Prepared by-

Roll no -

08

Class-IX - A

Meeran Ali

Ahmad

Topics to be discussed…

What is a DISASTER ? What is disaster management? How to manage disasters ? Disaster management initiative Disasters and Communities Community empowerment Community Based Disaster Management Case studies Village Disaster Management Committee Conclusion

What is a DISASTER ?

A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment. A disaster can be ostensively defined as any tragic event with great loss stemming from events such as earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, or explosions.

What is disaster management?

‘Disaster management can be defined as the organization and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters.

How to manage disasters ?

The local communities at the time of disaster or before the disaster make groups for helping the people from suffering during the disaster. These groups include First Aid group, Health group, Food and Welfare group, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) etc. They all are well trained by some local community members. All the groups are sent for helping any other local community that is suffering from a disaster. They also ask people to move from the area affected from disaster to some other safe regions. They are given shelter and every possible facilities by those local management communities. Some agencies also provide maps of potential disaster sites. Today, Government is also making effort to provide good facilities during the disaster. In Indian rural areas, the community (group of families) are choosing a leader and developing their Disaster management skills to protect themselves and other local communities as well.

Disaster management initiative

First responders – First responders are those people who are the first to act as a response to a disaster situation . Community is the most important component in any disaster management initiatives as the members are-

1. First responders.2. Source of maximum information.3. People know local coping mechanism.4. Since the dependence on external resources is

time consuming so self help is in self interest.

Disasters and CommunitiesDisaster risk is on the rise throughout the world. Over the past two to three decades, the economic losses and the number of people who have been affected by natural disasters have increased more rapidly than both economic and population growth. The physical, social andeconomic losses caused by these disasters are particularly harsh for developing countries since they have a long-range effect in the development process. The impacts of the disasters are deeplyrelated with the socio economic conditions, tradition, culture, and climate of the communities.

Community empowerment

While disasters can strike wide region or a nation, that impact is felt at the community level although it may hit one or several communities at once. It is these communities that constitute what is referred to as “disaster fronts”. Being at the forefronts, communities need to have capacity to respond to threats themselves. It is for While different community empowerment programmes related to disaster mitigation have achieved their objectives, they are often short term, and issues on sustainability in these efforts are rarely addressed. Government, non-government and international organizations implement various programmes before and after the disasters. Most of them are very successful during the project period, but gradually diminish as the years pass.

may threaten their well-being.

Community Based Disaster Management (CBDM)

Most of disaster response can be characterized as command and control structure one that is top down and with logistic centre approach. Because of this , we observe, lack of community participation that results into failures in meeting the appropriate and vital humanitarian needs, unnecessary increase in requirement for external resources, and general dissatisfaction over performance despite the use of exceptional management measures. Recognizing these limitations, the Community Based Disaster Management (CBDM) approach promotes a bottom-up approach working in harmony with the top - down approach, to address the challenges and difficulties. To be effective, local communities must be supported into analyzing their hazardous conditions, their vulnerabilities and capacities as they see themselves.

The CBDM approach provides opportunities for the local community to evaluate their own situation based on their own experiences initially. Under this approach, the local community not only becomes part of creating plans and decisions, but also becomes a major player in its implementation. Although the community is given greater roles in the decision-making and implementation processes, CBDM does not ignore the importance of scientific and objective risk assessment and planning. The CBDM approach acknowledges that as many stakeholders as needed should be involved in the process, with the end goal of achieving capacities and transferring of resources at to the community, which level who would assume the biggest responsibility in over disaster reduction.

Case studies

The United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD) has incorporated CBDM as its approach in disaster management planning under the overall organizational mandate of sustainable regional development and human security. The UNCRD Disaster Management Planning Hyogo Office focused on the community initiatives in the Asian region targeting different stakeholders, from local government decision makers to schoolchildren. In all initiatives, attempts were made to ensure that communities are engaged in disaster risk management phases and are empowered to carry over them in long term run.

Some case studies of UNCRD initiatives in this regard are- 1. Sustainability in Community Based Disaster Management-

In the Year 2002, UNCRD launched a three-year project on titled “Sustainability in Community Based Disaster Management”, to study the effectiveness of the grass - root projects and to suggest policy input for sustainability, which will be useful for the different communities to take future actions. This was to help to understand the gaps in the community initiatives, and to take corrective actions in future.

2. Afghan Training and livelihood Initiative-UNCRD Hyogo Office carried out “Afghan Training and Livelihood Initiative (ALTI)” in Afghanistan from October 2002 to June 2003. Under the need of the holistic rehabilitation after more than two decades of conflict and strife, the urgent need was to build houses of people. As Afghanistan is an earthquake prone country, and is located in one of the most active seismic belts of the world, seismic risk needs to be incorporated in its rehabilitation process. The ALTI focused on developments of guidelines for earthquake safe construction practices, training of masons and engineers, and construction of model houses.

3.Patanka New Life (PNY) Plan – After the Gujarat earthquake of January 2001, PNY was

initiated as joint initiative of diverse organizations including government, non-government, academics and international organizations for community based effective rehabilitation. The aim of the initiative was to train and empower local masons and communities with proper earthquake-safer technologies focusing on local tradition and culture. Emphasis was to ensure confidence building and long-term use of traditional technologies.

4. School Earthquake Safety Initiative – The United Nations Centre for Regional Development

(UNCRD) is, currently, promoting School Earthquake Safety Initiative through a project “Reducing Vulnerability of School Children to Earthquakes” jointly with UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in Asia-Pacific region. The project aims to make schools safe against earthquakes and build disaster- resilient communities through self-help, cooperation and education. The project includes retrofitting of school building in a participatory way with the involvement of local communities, local governments and resource institutions, trainings on safer construction practices to technicians, disaster education in school and communities. These activities are carried out in Fiji Islands, India, Indonesia and Uzbekistan as demonstration cases which will be disseminated throughout the respective geographical regions.

Village Disaster Management Committee (VDMC)

Village disaster management committee- It looks after the disaster management in the village.

The role of Village disaster management committee- is to create awareness and to guide the community in the preparation of village disaster management society.

Disaster Management team- Team that can respond to an emergency.

The basic areas covered under DMT’s-1. Early warning and communication team.2. Evacuation and temporary shelter management team.3. Search and rescue team.4. Health and first-aid team.5. Relief co-ordination team.6. Water and sanitation team.

Conclusion

Disaster management is extremely important for the human survival. Disaster management helps us in managing disasters and be prepared for disasters. Steps should be taken to make a disaster resilient society , some of them are-

1. Hazard mapping of vulnerable areas and houses.2. Identification of vulnerable people.3. Identifying resources available for early

warning system.4. Identification of safe places to reside when the

disaster strikes.5. Identifying human resources available-that will

form the members of disaster management team.

We must not forget Quentin crisp who quoted that-

"You should treat all disasters as if they were

trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it

were a disaster"

THANK

YOU!!!

The

End