Fewer communities will be affected by natural disasters if they become actively involved in disaster preparedness and emergency response activities, says a representative of a prominent NGO.
"Every village is different and their own people understand what happened in the past and what may happen in the future," Oxfam Indonesia country director Richard Mawer told The Jakarta Post.
Mawer was speaking in relation to the progress of Building Resilience in Eastern Indonesia, a disaster risk reduction project that has been developed by Oxfam Indonesia in 16 districts since June 2009.
Communities in Nuri and Welo villages in Larantuka regency, one of the Building Resilience project sites in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), can now avoid significant damage during a disaster after they developed volunteer village preparedness teams to map out disaster risks and identify how to minimize them.
Mawer said the village teams would play a major role in protecting their villages from future floods, landslides, forest fires and even volcano eruptions. The teams looked at a whole range of issues, from analyzing the risks to understanding how they responded to these risks, and then took the necessary action to avoid damage caused by disasters.
These actions included cleaning river beds and building up river walls, planting trees to slow down the water flow and training villagers with first aid skills and on how to build temporary shelters.
“They are looking at what they can do to ensure that the water coming down the hill will not wash away their houses and put their families at risk,” said Mawer.
Through the program, women have been demonstrating what important roles they can play in village affairs, including in disaster preparedness and emergency response and in identifying future priorities for village development funds. Some of them have also initiated credit unions for women.
"It's encouraging to see that the Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency [BPBD] Larantuka plans to replicate this approach to all 250 villages in the region over the coming years," said Mawer.
A Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Forum established in Larantuka in 2012 ensured that the BPBD, local communities and other stakeholders, including other government ministries, local NGOs and religious organizations, could work closely together and learn from each other in dealing with disaster risks.
Sunday 24 March 2013
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/03/24/communities-can-protect-themselves-natural-disasters-says-oxfam.html
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