The Disaster Risk Reduction programs of DC tackle the problems of flood prone villages in Bihar and Orissa through the dual process of capacity building and physical interventions.

In the drought prone areas of Rajasthan, DC has revived the traditional methods of water harvesting like ponds, check- dams and underground cisterns.  More land is now cultivated with considerable increase in agricultural yields.  This is having a positive impact on poverty reduction.

Capacity building of communities in the disaster prone states of India:  Rajasthan, Bihar and Orissa        - April to Sep 2010

INTRODUCTION:

The  Discipleship Centre implemented a Community based Disaster  risk reduction project through Policy Change, Capacity Building and Community-Based Mitigation in three of the most disaster prone areas in India from January  2006 to September 2010.  The project was funded by DFID with support of Tear fund UK and targeted 1786 vulnerable families.

SUCCESSES and CHALLENGES

1.      Reduced dependency

There has been reduction in dependency in the impact areas where community members no longer at the receiving end but instead prefer to work for it. This is a positive change in mindset in all the target communities. 

2.      Community ownership

This project witnessed a certain degree of community ownership of the various interventions. Although the project may not have addressed all of its activities, of the indicators reflected in the log frame but has influenced the community to reach to the desired level.

3.      Self help Group Initiative

Village self help groups and their inter loaning scheme will continue to be a major transformational intervention, simply because it solely utilizes local resources. By pooling in their resources, they are able to assist each other with small loans to start up small businesses and generate income to support their families. It is transformational because people realize that they capacitated and that they have the resources to help themselves out of poverty.

4.      Replicate from our Intervention

Perhaps one of the key lessons learnt was active engagement of the community at various level to influence the government authorities .The influence was so much so that the local authorities put High Rise Tube wells along the flood inundated areas in Bihar. As the result of this high rise tube well which provided safe drinking water during flood & through out the year. It was much appreciated and replicated used in other communities which is and evidence as the result of  our advocacy

5.      Increase production through a small intervention:

It was observed through PADR process that  the villagers were suffering from water logging for three to four months in these target villages. DC with the help VDMC and villagers decided to make culvert (RCC) on the boundaries of the roads to avoid water –logging   to the low level fields. Now the farmers are able to harvest one more paddy / Rabi crops and enchance their livelihood as the result of the culverts.

6.      Utilize their local resources: In one of the community in Orissa the engagement of the SHG to invest in fisheries, poultry has led to a transformation from a led to a leader approach this example is replicated as a good practice in other SHGs.

SUSTAINABILITY

The communities are now able to adopt DRR interventions and there is evidence that the primary beneficiaries are training others as well. The success stories of others have resulted in more people adopting the implementation of DRR interventions. VEF (Village emergency Fund) is established to provide monetary support as the result of capacity building.  A sense of ownership of the community is seen as they contributed human capital resources in the infrastructural works and also through the extra care they have taken to maintain the Ponds, cisterns, culverts, approach roads. The development of networks with the local level Govt. has enabled the villagers to obtain various schemes to their villages. The villagers started influence the Govt. departments to undertake works that were sanctioned by state and national government. Reaching the end of the project, the issue of sustainability is of utmost importance. Although there was little time to implement a thorough exit strategy to ensure the sustainability of the project, DC field staff met with all the disaster management committees to review the community action plans and plan the way forward. The review process involved an assessment of the progress made towards ad­dressing priority vulnerabilities in each community as well as the identification of remaining vulner­ability gaps, which guided the strategic planning for the way forward without the DRR project. The committees is now  trained in DRR and are now aware of disaster risks and how to address them so they have been equipped with the knowledge and skills for reducing the risks. Although they may not have access to donor funding for major developments, this project promoted practical interventions that utilized local resources and other government sources so that they can be easily replicated. The project has tried to emphasize that the communities do have the resources that are needed to help themselves out of poverty and increase their resilience against disasters and other setback.

Lesson Learnt

The dependency is one of the greatest challenges the project has had to overcome. VEC (Village Emergency Fund) is community-based initiatives that require the communities to share their resources and build their own capacities.The need to involve the local leaders (PRI members /Village Mukiya / Traditional leaders Political leaders in discussing issues that hinder progress of projects has been one of the lessons the project has learnt. Some leaders could contribute to failure of development projects by not addressing the problems being faced by beneficiary households and other community members because their roles are not discussed in an open meeting.