The world conference on Disaster Reduction was held from 18^th to 22^nd 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,

 

Resilience as defined by the (US/ISDR, 2005) is the capacity of a system, community or a society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure. This is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable of organizing itself to increase this capacity for learning from past disaster for better future protection and to improve risk reduction measures. The SRTAC project looks at strengthening resilience of a village from; physical, economic, and Information perspectives. The project is finely woven around intricate social structure of the grass roots through the concepts of Sustainable Environmental Management, Livelihood development and Information Communication Technology.

 

The SRTAC resilience models, Strengthens the physical resilience of a village through establishing mangrove and non mangrove forests that functions as barrier against the destructive force of the tsunami tidal wave. It strengthens the economic resilience of a village by introducing disaster resilient livelihoods, restoring and improving existing livelihoods by value addition and market linkage. Finally the community knowledge, and inner resilience is strengthened by improving the mental capacity through capacity building programs and strengthening the means to access diverse forms of information and ICT enhanced services. The project hypothesizes that the combination of these three elements will act synergistically to strengthen the Resilience of a village to overcome the effects of any disaster.