Global Forum for Disaster Reduction
Greetings from GFDR! The month of
November has been a busy one with the
last leg of the Gujarat Earthquake
Recovery Status Project underway. The
month began with the Second India
Disaster Management Congress which
was an enriching experience where
GFDR got to interact with several
researchers, organizations, officials and
practitioners in the field of Disaster Risk
Reduction and Management. You can
read more about this in our update! We
are also pleased to let you know that our
film on the Gujarat Recovery is near
completion and at the editing stages.
Other news on new partnerships
prospects and our ongoing commitments
have been highlighted in this update as
well. Once again I would like to thank
you for your support and invaluable
inputs so far. As always, do let us know
what is going on at your end so we can
include it in the next update.
Ongoing Endeavours
Gujarat Earthquake Recovery
Status Study: The study on the
recovery of Gujarat is near completion.
The first draft of the report has been
written and is under internal review.
This study has been an invaluable
opportunity for GFDR members and the
researchers from the Anthropology
Department of the University of Delhi,
to learn from in many respects. Our six
case studies along with the main report
have thrown light on many best practices
and have made recommendations that
shall contribute to disaster risk reduction
research in the future. The field research
for the last case study on Good
governance was conducted by Ms
Jennifer Kishan, Program Manager
GFDR, in November. This entailed visits
to Bhuj and neighbouring villages in
order to take interviews of the key
stakeholders in the decision-making and
implementation processes. Also focused
group discussions at both the urban and
rural levels have been conducted.
Film on Gujarat Earthquake
Recovery: As you may recall from
our earlier updates, we are also in the
midst of documenting the Gujarat
Recovery Status Study through visual
media. Archana Kapoor Productions has
been working with us on this project. In
November, the film team along with
Jennifer Kishan (GFDR) visited Bhuj
and its nearby villages for this. The team
conducted
filmed
interviews
of
government officials, civil society
organizations, NGO personnel, and the
local people at the grassroots so as to
give a holistic perspective of the
recovery of Gujarat. The film documents
the lessons learnt and some of the best
practices that have emerged from this
earthquake recovery. The shooting of the
film is over and a rough cut along with
the script has been prepared. The final
film shall be 8 minutes long. The film
shall be screened in the IRP/ADRC
Conference in January 2010.
NERMP: The Project has reached its
post DRP stage and work is in progress
for developing the course curriculum.
This month the Retrofitting Consultants
visited two more district hospitals for
their assessment in Satara (Maharashtra
and Jamnager (Gujarat).
Shaam-e-Sarhad: Sunset at the
Border
About 63 kilometers from the city of
Bhuj, lies the village of Hodka and at its
outskirts is the Shaam-e-Sarhad resort; a
tourist oasis with state of the art
facilities and a flavour of local culture. I
had the opportunity to visit the resort as
a part of my fieldwork for the Gujarat
Recovery Study. This place, at the end of
Rann of Kutch, is one of the best
examples of the collaborative measures
taken at the grassroots level which have
brought about recovery in the villages of
Gujarat. It is an initiative of the local
NGO, Hunnar shaala and has been
established through support from the
Ministry of Tourism, GoI and UNDP.
Set up with the purpose of boosting the
local economy through tourism, the
resort has greatly relied on community
participation at every step.
While
national, international funds and
partnerships with local NGO collectives
conceptualized the idea of the resort, it
is the villagers of Hodka who have
plunged into the project with a keen
sense of ownership and involvement.
From using indigenous knowledge in
the construction of the resort, planning
the layout of the place, painting the
frescos on the thatched mud houses,
management of the resort, to providing
the music and live entertainment for the
guests, the village community has had
much to contribute here.
The initial response to this
project was met with a lot of
apprehension as the people felt, and
rightly so, that this would have an
adverse effect on the culture and
traditional ways of living of the place. It
is here that partnerships with local
NGOs such as Hunnar Shaala, whose
mandate itself demands a preservation
of culture, helped address these issues
and measures were taken to ensure that
traditional crafts and livelihoods could
be sustained alongside. By giving the
community the reins to the decisionmaking and management processes, one
could ensure that the traditional ways of
the village would not be compromised
in anyway by tourist activity. Hodka
Paryatan Samiti, the village tourism
committee, was established to look into
the construction, layout and the
management of the resort. During the
implementation stage the committee
facilitated the employment of the staff
and the handling of the logistics. As a
vibrant culture rich community, the
Hodka village has its various traditional
crafts on display at the resort. With the
strong involvement of the community,
the resort has been designed to provide
modern tourism facilities while keeping
the traditional flavour of the region. The
beautiful
indigenous
huts
with
traditional paintings and mirror work
have state-of-the art facilities inside.
Both national and international tourists
flock the place and advance bookings
are quite common.
As the dusk settled in, the music
from the desert permeated the
landscape. A traditional folkdance in a
lantern lit courtyard left me entranced.
In this music I could clearly hear the
loud droll of empowerment and
independence; Building back their lives
through their own strength. What
Shaam-e-Sarhad stands for is this
resilience of the people, encouraged
through collaborations with those who
came to help in their time of greatest
need. -JK
New Initiatives/Partnerships
‘Second
India
Disaster
Management Congress’: The
rise of disasters in the last decade has
led to various initiatives at the national
and state levels. It has been realized
that there is a need for sharing and
dissemination of Knowledge with
regards to Disaster Management and
Disaster Risk Reduction. Though new
hubs of knowledge such as universities,
corporate research houses, academic
organizations, government agencies,
individuals and think tanks have been
mushrooming, however there is a
dearth of platforms for sharing and
dissemination of this knowledge.
Disaster
management
and
Risk
Reduction comprise of cross cutting
issues and a range of disciplines.
Therefore to bring together information
from all these areas would be of much
value to all stakeholders.
On November 4-6, 2009, The National
Institute of Disaster Management
organized the Second India Disaster
Management Congress at Vigyan
Bhawan, New Delhi. A total of 26
Technical Sessions were organized
around 13 Thematic Clusters. The
purpose behind this was 1) to showcase
research from various sectors so that
they can compliment each other or so
that findings can be corrected, 2) enlarge
the perspective of DRR and give a
holistic view, and 3) to create a
community of scholars researchers and
practitioners of Disaster Management
that are more aware and have a means
to interact.
The Partners of NIDM for organizing
this conference were- Ministry of Home
Affairs,
India,
National
Disaster
Management Authority, GFDRR, WHO,
USAID, Swiss Agency for Development
and Cooperation, UNDP, UNICEF, and
UNISDR. The Disaster Congress saw
the participation of hundreds of
delegates from around the world and
was a very good opportunity to build
ties and exchange knowledge across the
globe; this being the primary objective
of this conference.
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, former President
of India, gave the Valedictory Address
for the Conference. He emphasized the
need
for
integrating
disaster
management and national development
and the salience of knowledge sharing
in this process. Citing examples of
global best practices such as the Swiss
Humanitarian Agency’s Search and
Rescue
System,
he
pointed
at
technology in early warnings and
capacity building of all stakeholders, as
two key areas of this integrated
approach.
vulnerable communities that are most
affected by disasters.
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam giving the Valedictory
speech
GFDR also contributed to the conference
through presentations of papers and
publication of abstracts. Mr. Anuj
Tiwari, Head of Projects, GFDR,
participated in the conference and his
abstract on Enhancing the Roles of NGOs
in Disaster Management through capacity
building was selected for publication by
NIDM. Ms Victoria Devi, Project
Coordinator, GFDR, presented a joint
paper with Dr. PC Joshi, Department of
Anthropology, Delhi University, on
Incorporating Local Needs and Capacities
for Flood Risk Reduction.
Meeting with DIPECHO: Ms.
Claudia Amaral, DIPECHO TA, South
Asia, met with Mr. Anil K Sinha, CoChairman GFDR, and Mr. Anuj Tiwari
at the Regional Support Office of
DIPECHO in New Delhi on 17
November 2009.
They shared
information regarding the activities and
mandate of GFDR and discussed the
possibilities of joint initiatives and
future ventures. DIPECHO is the
Disaster Preparedness programme of
the
European
Commission’s
Humanitarian Department. Set up in
1992 it is based on the idea of preemptive measures of reducing disaster
risks. The programme targets those
Global Forum for Disaster Reduction
1 Akbar Villa, Near Old SBI
Marol Maroshi Road, Andheri (E)
Mumbai 400 059 India
Tel +91 22 2925 3086
Fax + 91 22 2925 5279
Website www.gfdr.org
For further details contact: Ms Jennifer Kishan,
Program Manager- Knowledge Management GFDR
Tel +91 9971209663 Email: jennykishan@gmail.com