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KSSS- Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction Programme

India appears to be more and more vulnerable to disasters due to its unique geographical and geo-climatic conditions, which create various types of natural hazards at regular intervals. Natural hazards like flood, drought, earthquake and cyclone are recurrent phenomena in the country. It is estimated that a significant 60% of the landmass is prone to earthquake of various intensities, about 40 million hectares are prone to flood, about 8% of the total area is prone to cyclone and 68% of the area is susceptible to drought. Many of these hazards very often turn into disasters causing enormous loss of life, property and immeasurable sufferings to people, particularly the poor and the vulnerable. In this context, Tsunami in India had clearly brought to light the ill equipped nature of the communities to manage disasters. This is evident from the way the community handled the crisis situations in the past. The subsequent emergency and reconstruction responses from the aid agencies to a great extent failed to incorporate the resilient capacities of the communities. The tsunami impact assessment had also explicated that there were higher fatality of women and children compared to men in tsunami disaster. This was attributed to their vulnerability to disaster risk caused by various factors. Disaster risk arises when hazards interact with physical, social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities. Despite the growing understanding and acceptance of the importance of disaster risk reduction and increased disaster response capacities, disasters and more particularly the management and reduction of risk continue to pose a global challenge. In this context, the efforts of the Kottar Social Service Society (KSSS) are to enhance the capacity of the tsunami-affected communities to reduce the disaster risks through systematic disaster reduction development plan. KSSS has attempted to organize the affected people into community groups as a mechanism to facilitate their sustainable development for self-reliance. Through community mobilization strategies viz. promoting and strengthening the Community Based Organizations (CBO) at different levels, KSSS has developed capacities of micro level organizations, the community leaders and the members to promote community ownership as also to facilitate prevention, mitigation & preparedness measures to minimize the impact of disasters and to establish network with Civil Society organizations & PRI. Development is a dynamic process through which people attempt to increase their capacities for mitigating their immediate and long term vulnerabilities to events which threaten their economic and social existence. This view of development expresses succinctly the importance of community managed disaster risk reduction. It is in this context the objectives of Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) Programme of Kottar Social Service Society assume significance. KSSS has been implementing the CMDRR project activities in 7 panchayats in Kanyakumari district. The CMDRR programme tries to address the concerns of the susceptible coastal communities and the most vulnerable sections of the coastal communities.

Goal:

  • Promotion of coastal communities that are capable of taking care of their own interests especially that of most vulnerable groups and networking with PRIs and the Line Departments.

Activities

  • Organizing training programmes and workshops for Village leaders and PRI members on preparation of viable development plan at panchayat level.
  • Interface with PRI and Line Departments of the State Government.
  • Formation of Task Force Committees (TFC) at village and panchayat levels.
  • Organizing refresher training to Task Force Committees (TFC).
  • Arranging workshop on Conflict Management techniques to CBO leaders.
  • Organizing training programmes on Panchayatraj systems and functions and responsibilities of various stakeholders of panchayatraj institutions to women CBO leaders.
  • Organizing Community Vigilance Groups (CVG) at village and panchayat levels.
  • Strengthening Community Development Councils (CDC) and Children Panchayats.
  • Developing Project Monitoring Framework (PMF) with the participation of target communities.
  • Staff capacity enhancement training on networking techniques, lobbying methods and documentation.

Achievements

  • The coastal communities have been made the centre of hazard identification, risk assessment, vulnerability analysis, capacity assessment and managing disaster when it occurs.
  • The coastal communities especially the women, children and the differently-abled people have been trained in coping mechanism with a given hazard to minimize critical damages to lives and livelihoods.
  • Target communities have already been engaged in developing CMDRR plan that will effectively reduce the disaster risk.
  • Village profiles have been prepared with the active participation of the target communities through Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques.
  • Preparation of panchayat level profile comprising of village details with the disaggregated data have been initiated in all the 7 target panchayats.
  • Governing structures at village level have been increased through participation of CBOs and the vulnerable sections of the coastal communities.
  • The culture of disaster risk awareness, preparedness and prevention among members of vulnerable groups has been promoted in the coastal villages.
  • The technical and managerial capacity of KSSS and the target communities has considerably been enhanced to analyze the causes and consequences of hazards, climate change factors, and to design effective interventions and adaptation strategies.
  • Constructive discussions were initiated in 7 panchayats between panchayat Raj institutions, village council and community based organizations.
  • Taking the fishermen welfare schemes to the door steps of the coastal communities through organizing Fisheries Department and village community interactions in 10 villages.
  • Manual on fishermen welfare schemes has been published.
  • Health, Fisheries, Panchayat and Fire Departments have been periodically interacting with the village communities to enhance the knowledge level of the coastal communities on government schemes.
  • TFCs have been established and strengthened.
  • Children panchayat  and community development councils have been strengthened to take active participation in grama shaba meetings.
  • Community Vigilance Groups are motivated to play an active role in community development activities.


Impacts

  • Village communities, especially the most vulnerable, have realized their rights to be included in the governing structures so as to reflect their concerns in the development plan.
  • Knowledge level of the coastal communities on welfare schemes under Fisheries, Health and Panchayat departments has considerably enhanced.
  • Community exhibits enormous interest to interact with the Line Departments.
  • Participation in Grama Shaba meetings has significantly increased.
  • The community expresses willingness for collective action.
  • The community knows to use the disaggregated data for further development action


Challenges:

  • Difficulties were faced to collect information from Panchayat office.
  • It has not been easy to sustain the TFC as the mobility of the members to other places for career growth is very often experienced.
  • The response of the community sometimes is very cold as economic activities are not linked with CMDRR groups
  • Intra village conflicts very often hamper our intervention.


Lessons Learned:

  • Taking the information to the door steps through folk strategies yields positive results.
  • Initiating interaction meetings among stakeholders generates understanding.
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