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To strengthen capacity of local organizations and governments to prepare for and mitigate natural disasters
Disaster management sub-committees are in function in 12 villages (06 reformed and 06 established) under the guidance of Disaster Management Centre (DMC), Disaster management plans at village level were developed in consultation with stakeholders and were presented at the district coordination committees with the view to incorporate into district plans. Government authorities responsible for disaster management and mitigation were involved in planning and training workshops, so that their practices were changed and collaborations were established.
Committee members were participated at several training programmes related to disaster, such as first-aid, fire fighting, leadership, search-rescue with the collaboration of St. John’s Ambulance Society, Sri Lanka Air Force and DMC. With the capacity built, these sub-committee members were able to manage 11 floods since April 2007. The first comprehensive Disaster Management Training Module was developed for Sri Lanka as an outcome of the project in collaboration with DMC.
As a step to disaster management and mitigation, sub-committees took the responsibility in construction of flood control systems under the guidance of service providers – DMC, Practical Action, etc., with the participation of community: culverts, flood gates, side walls, gabion walls etc. as per the plans prepared. With community participation and collaborations with other service providers, technology demonstrations/research were done on drought related issues.
A web-portal linked to Sahana Disaster Management System was initiated to support the coordination during disasters, addressing the common problems such as finding people, managing aids, managing volunteers etc.
To expand livelihood opportunities for women and other groups through access to information:
Findings of the baseline study guided the project team to follow the process in developing livelihoods: 1) Business Idea Generation [BIG]; 2) Participatory Market Chain Analysis [PMCA] for livelihoods sectors such as handicrafts, coir, handlooms, fisheries, paddy; 3) Business planning workshops and 4) Vocational/ Technical Training with the establishment of two trainers’ pools in South and East.
VDC being the boundary partner of the project, was more involved in livelihood development, with the assistance from 02 trainers’ pools organised: 600 community members participated at PMCA programmes; 200 at Business Idea Generation workshops; 200 in management training programmes. Participation at technical training programmes is as follows: Handicrafts (40); Home gardening (100); Boat Engine Repair (20); Food Processing (130) and Dress Making (40).
Cluster groups that were assisted by the project were from sectors of coir, handicrafts, handlooms, paddy/organic paddy, food processing, fisheries, eco-tourism, etc. Four VICs have been functioning as livelihood development centres linking with service providers directly (OXFAM-GB, REN, CARITAS). Practical Action collaborated with its expertise in DRSL, REN in marketing and SEEDS in business and technical training in designing specific livelihood interventions also accommodating the needs of most-marginalised members and low-income groups (66%) in the community. Home gardening and self-employment ventures were some interventions introduced to them through VIC. In addition, rural business centres were established in Wanduruppa and Karathivu. In Thalalla, 26-acre abandon land was able to re-cultivated as a result of infrastructure development intervention while in Andaragasyaya, the rehabilitation of an irrigation system/canal with community participation resulted in removing flood effects in 20 acre cultivation land.
Ensuring the accessibility to information, 04 tele-centres and 12 VICs were established in the 04 districts which are equipped with systems to support livelihood needs of the community members such as telecommunications, email/internet facility, photocopying and print media – newspapers, village. Newsletters, booklets and leaflets carrying disaster and livelihood related information. VICs also operate as the project office for village development activities and early warning centre on disaster/tsunami.
About 8000 users were reported as visited 12 VICs by the end of September 2008, and the majority were school children. The youth and adults were there for reading newspapers, e-magazines, photocopying, information on agriculture, health etc. VIC teams have organised promotional activities such as community newsletters and community outreach programmes, to increase its clientele. There is no distinct differentiation of number of women and men as VIC users, with more women participation observed in Galle and Ampara districts, and in the case of fishing community compared to other subsectors. The monthly average revenue generated was reported as Rs.5,500/- per VIC and 69% users were satisfied with their services.
To rehabilitate and improve mangrove and non-mangrove bio-shields and introduce new village level management to share benefits:
Seven hundred and fifty six (756) community members participated at bio-shield awareness programmes conducted in 4 districts. 512 community members gained knowledge and skills on nursery planting and management through training programmes conducted with the involvement of technical officer of the departments of Agriculture and Forestry. 108 members took part in nursery management in 10 villages; 750 community members participated in bio-shield development activities including 225 low-income community groups who earned an income (Rs.600/- per working day), providing labour in the bio-shield management activities, and 70-80% of total involved were women.
More than 100,000 plants (mangrove & non-mangrove) planted on 42ha of coastal land in the East and along the coastal belts in the South. Studying different varieties of plants in bio-shield development 10 plant species were identified for having adaptable to disaster prone areas, with the average survival rate recorded as 80%.
VDC being the main body of planning and resource management of all the activities of the project in a village, eco-circles were established under VDC in 12 villages. They were trained and exposed to bio-shield management and coast conservation practices e.g. eco-tourism in other areas of the country, as a mechanism to facilitate their active participation of the community.
Several individuals/groups earned income from plant nurseries by selling their plants to the project and other organisations promoting bio-shield management, and 225 poor members gained an incentive for watering the plants and other labour work on temporary basis. No livelihood was evolved through bio-shield due to its slow growth and low quality.
Parts of the Coastal Resource Management (CRM) plans developed for each location have been implemented through the project due to budgetary implications. With the view to incorporate them into district and divisional plans, these plans are expected to be presented at district coordination meetings.
Aim of the program
In here the main objectives are to make a disaster management plan to each village which are under the SRTAC project and make a powerful young village team who can face natural disasters very successfully and help their villages more actively at such situations.
Ultimate results are to overcome the overlapping of disaster risk reduction programs conducting by the other organizations in different occasions in the villages and strengthen the resilience of the community to face future disasters. So the SRTAC supposed to conduct the disaster risk reduction programs by few steps to reach their ultimate result.
New structure of the disaster management committee
At the beginning, the disaster management committees were being reformed. There were 5 Disaster management committees in each village which had been established under the Disaster Management Centre, Sarvodaya and other organizations. All discussed and were reformed in to a one committee. It becomes the one and only responsible committee, which can be acted legally under the government certification in a village regarding the disaster management activities. The 6 sub committees in the main committee were presented their responsibilities. All sub committees were appointed for the different tasks.
- Early warning dissemination
- search, rescue and evacuation
- Refugee camp and aid management
- Health and first aid
- Drinking water, sanitation and removal of corpses
- Patrol, vigilance and coordination
All sub committees proposed the essential equipments they want to engage in their own tasks. Then the list was sent to the Disaster Management centre for the approval. DMC has decided to release those equipments to the committee members after a proper training series about the way of using those equipments.
Disaster Management plan
Then all committee members, officers of Disaster Management Center and other responsible officers started to make the disaster management plan to avoid the repetition and overlapping of future programs in each village by using the data, collected from each village. As Madilla already had a disaster management plan, that plan was being updated. In here all the villagers contributed very curiously and actively to reach the success of their village plan. After the presentation of the village plan to all participants, they finalized and send it to the GA for the approval.
First aid training program
As the second step, SRTAC attempted to energize the committee by giving a training series to the members. As a result SRTAC conducted a first aid training programs to build the capacity in all participants who were nearly 70 people in each program. They were on 7th, 8th, 9th July in Andaragasyaya and 10th, 11th, 12th July in Madilla. The training programs were conducted by the cooperation of St. Johns Institute and Disaster Management Centre. They gave a special training to the participants, how to face in an accident and to give an urgent treatment before go to the hospital. Also they introduced the first aid equipments which they can use in such a situation.
Andaragasyaya first aid training was conducted in Andaragasyaya Small Fisheries Community hall and about 63 people including Grama Niladari, District DMC coordinator, Sarvodaya District coordinator, Sarvodaya divisional coordinator, SRTAC project manager and a St. Johns officer participated to the program. There were 45 committee members from different ages to have the training.
Madilla first aid training was conducted in the Marakolliya Sri Vishuddharamaya Viharaya with the participation of 68 people. There were Grama Niladhari, 8 DMC officers including District DMC Coordinator, 8 sarvodaya officers including District Coordinator and Divisional Coordinator, 2 St. Johns officers, a project manager and 45 committee members.
If you guy want to know the reality of sustainable Development thats is happening in some places in Sri Lanka. [ Atleast My point of view] just see this….. Thanks Vajira of Practical Action for sharing this with me.
The world conference on Disaster Reduction was held from 18th to 22nd January 2005 in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. The key document that came out from the conference referred to as the Hyogo Framework of Action (HFA) primarily focus on building the resilience on National and Communities to disasters. The conference provided the opportunity develop strategic and systematic approaches to reducing vulnerabilities and hazards. The Strengthening Resilience in Tsunami Affected Communities Project (Referred to as SRTAC project in this document) is a unique project that works on strengthening Resilience from a multi sector perspective, especially in a developing country context. SRTAC is an Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and International Development research Centre (IDRC) funded project implemented in India and Sri Lanka. The key implementing partners of Sri Lanka are Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramdana Sangamaya and Practical Action South Asia. The Project is implements in twelve rural villages with in Galle, Matara, Hambantota and Amapra districts. Read the rest of this entry »
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), operating in Sri Lanka under the General agreement on Development Cooperation between the Government of Canada and the Government of Sri Lanka is launching a new project – Canada’s Tsunami Results Monitoring Project (CTRM)- in order to collect feedback and to document al overall impact of CIDA’s response to the 2004 tsunmai. CIDA has recruited services pf Environmental Management Lanka (EML) consultants Private Limited to carry out this activity over the next thireen months. The EML team will combine Sri Lanka and Canadian Experts in project monitoring, evaluation and result-based management. They will individually monitor Canadian Funded tsunami projects throughout the country and report on progress of individual initiatives in terms of accountability. Transparency and results achieved, s well as implementing challenges and constraints. The EML Consultant team is scheduled to meet the Sarvodaya-Practical Action Project team on 23rd April to develop an individual monitoring protocols with each Project Partner that incorporates the unique set of factors that each project is dealing with. 8)
The project has started producing mini video documentaries about project activities in the village. We gave the brand name -SRTAC Village Knowledge Products_ to the vidoes documents. This movie clip was made using a simple digital camera with a movie mode and the (fabulous) Windows Movie Maker application. The project staff received a training on, how to use the WMM to prepare a short video document.
"Building inner spiritual resilience is the primary coping mechanism to external disasters "
Dr A T Ariyaratne, Founder President, Sarvodaya
"Is small still beautiful? We think it is. In an increasingly divided and fragile world, Practical Action aims to demonstrate and advocate the sustainable use of technology to reduce poverty in developing countries" -PRACTICAL ACTION
