2. Prepared by-

3.  What is a DISASTER ?
 What is disaster management?
 How to manage disasters ?
 Disaster management initiative
 Disasters and Communities
 Community empowerment
 Community Based Disaster Management
 Case studies
 Village Disaster Management Committee
 Conclusion

4.  A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard
that has come to fruition, resulting in an
event of substantial extent causing significant
physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or
drastic change to the environment. A disaster
can be ostensively defined as any tragic event
with great loss stemming from events such as
earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents,
fires, or explosions.

5.  ‘Disaster management can be defined as
the organization and management of
resources and responsibilities for
dealing with all humanitarian aspects of
emergencies, in particular preparedness,
response and recovery in order to lessen
the impact of disasters.

6.  The local communities at the time of disaster or before the
disaster make groups for helping the people from
suffering during the disaster. These groups include First
Aid group, Health group, Food and Welfare group, Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) etc. They all are
well trained by some local community members. All the
groups are sent for helping any other local community
that is suffering from a disaster. They also ask people to
move from the area affected from disaster to some other
safe regions. They are given shelter and every possible
facilities by those local management communities. Some
agencies also provide maps of potential disaster sites.
Today, Government is also making effort to provide good
facilities during the disaster. In Indian rural areas, the
community (group of families) are choosing a leader and
developing their Disaster management skills to protect
themselves and other local communities as well.

7.  First responders – First responders are those people
who are the first to act as a response to a disaster
situation . Community is the most important
component in any disaster management initiatives as
the members are-
1. First responders.
2. Source of maximum information.
3. People know local coping mechanism.
4. Since the dependence on external resources is time
consuming so self help is in self interest.

8. Disaster risk is on the rise throughout the world. Over the
past two to three decades, the economic losses and the
number of people who have been affected by natural
disasters have increased more rapidly than both economic
and population growth. The physical, social and
economic losses caused by these disasters are particularly
harsh for developing countries since they have a long-range
effect in the development process. The impacts of the
disasters are deeply
related with the socio economic
conditions, tradition, culture, and climate of the
communities.

9.  While disasters can strike wide region or a nation, that
impact is felt at the community level although it may hit
one or several communities at once. It is these
communities that constitute what is referred to as
“disaster fronts”. Being at the forefronts, communities
need to have capacity to respond to threats themselves.
It is for While different community empowerment
programmes related to disaster mitigation have
achieved their objectives, they are often short term, and
issues on sustainability in these efforts are rarely
addressed. Government, non-government and
international organizations implement various
programmes before and after the disasters. Most of
them are very successful during the project period, but
gradually diminish as the years pass.
 may threaten their well-being.

10.  Most of disaster response can be characterized as command and
control structure one that is top down and with logistic centre
approach. Because of this , we observe, lack of community
participation that results into failures in meeting the appropriate
and vital humanitarian needs, unnecessary increase in
requirement for external resources, and general dissatisfaction
over performance despite the use of exceptional management
measures. Recognizing these limitations, the Community Based
Disaster Management (CBDM) approach promotes a bottom-up
approach working in harmony with the top - down approach, to
address the challenges and difficulties. To be effective, local
communities must be supported into analyzing their hazardous
conditions, their vulnerabilities and capacities as they see
themselves.

11.  The CBDM approach provides opportunities for
the local community to evaluate their own
situation based on their own experiences
initially. Under this approach, the local
community not only becomes part of creating
plans and decisions, but also becomes a major
player in its implementation. Although the
community is given greater roles in the decision-
making and implementation processes, CBDM
does not ignore the importance of scientific and
objective risk assessment and planning. The
CBDM approach acknowledges that as many
stakeholders as needed should be involved in the
process, with the end goal of achieving capacities
and transferring of resources at to the
community, which level who would assume the
biggest responsibility in over disaster reduction.

12.  The United Nations Centre for Regional Development
(UNCRD) has incorporated CBDM as its approach in disaster
management planning under the overall organizational mandate
of sustainable regional development and human security. The
UNCRD Disaster Management Planning Hyogo Office focused
on the community initiatives in the Asian region targeting
different stakeholders, from local government decision makers
to schoolchildren. In all initiatives, attempts were made to
ensure that communities are engaged in disaster risk
management phases and are empowered to carry over them in
long term run.

13.  Some case studies of UNCRD initiatives in this regard are-
1. Sustainability in Community Based Disaster Management-
In the Year 2002, UNCRD launched a three-year project on
titled “Sustainability in Community Based Disaster
Management”, to study the effectiveness of the grass - root
projects and to suggest policy input for sustainability, which
will be useful for the different communities to take future
actions. This was to help to understand the gaps in the
community initiatives, and to take corrective actions in
future.
2. Afghan Training and livelihood Initiative-UNCRD Hyogo
Office carried out “Afghan Training and Livelihood
Initiative (ALTI)” in Afghanistan from October 2002 to June
2003. Under the need of the holistic rehabilitation after more
than two decades of conflict and strife, the urgent need was
to build houses of people. As Afghanistan is an earthquake
prone country, and is located in one of the most active
seismic belts of the world, seismic risk needs to be
incorporated in its rehabilitation process. The ALTI focused
on developments of guidelines for earthquake safe
construction practices, training of masons and engineers,
and construction of model houses.

14. 3.Patanka New Life (PNY) Plan –
After the Gujarat earthquake of January 2001, PNY was initiated as joint
initiative of diverse organizations including government, non-
government, academics and international organizations for community
based effective rehabilitation. The aim of the initiative was to train and
empower local masons and communities with proper earthquake-safer
technologies focusing on local tradition and culture. Emphasis was to
ensure confidence building and long-term use of traditional
technologies.
4. School Earthquake Safety Initiative –
The United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD) is,
currently, promoting School Earthquake Safety Initiative through a
project “Reducing Vulnerability of School Children to Earthquakes”
jointly with UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)
in Asia-Pacific region. The project aims to make schools safe against
earthquakes and build disaster- resilient communities through self-
help, cooperation and education. The project includes retrofitting of
school building in a participatory way with the involvement of local
communities, local governments and resource institutions, trainings on
safer construction practices to technicians, disaster education in school
and communities. These activities are carried out in Fiji Islands, India,
Indonesia and Uzbekistan as demonstration cases which will be
disseminated throughout the respective geographical regions.

15.  Village disaster management committee- It looks after the
disaster management in the village.
 The role of Village disaster management committee- is to
create awareness and to guide the community in the
preparation of village disaster management society.
 Disaster Management team- Team that can respond to an
emergency.
 The basic areas covered under DMT’s-
1. Early warning and communication team.
2. Evacuation and temporary shelter management team.
3. Search and rescue team.
4. Health and first-aid team.
5. Relief co-ordination team.
6. Water and sanitation team.

16.  Disaster management is extremely important for
the human survival. Disaster management helps
us in managing disasters and be prepared for
disasters. Steps should be taken to make a
disaster resilient society , some of them are-
1. Hazard mapping of vulnerable areas and houses.
2. Identification of vulnerable people.
3. Identifying resources available for early
warning system.
4. Identification of safe places to reside when the
disaster strikes.
5. Identifying human resources available-that will
form the members of disaster management team.

17.  We must not forget Quentin crisp who
quoted that-
"You should treat all
disasters as if they were
trivialities but never treat a
triviality as if it were a
disaster"