Disaster Risk Reduction Project in ten districts

By Our Staff Reporter
Bhopal, Jan 15:
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is supporting the State government and city-based Disaster Management Institute (DMI) in implementing a unique community-based Disaster Risk Reduction Project in ten districts of the state.
The Project, which got underway in November 2008 and presently covers 100 villages across Guna, Mandsaur, Damoh, Dhar, Harda, Raisen, Sheopur, Satna, Chhindwara and Barwani, aims to cover 250 villages by this year end.
''It envisages reducing loss of life and related risks by making people self-resilient. This Project is helping strengthen the community-coping mechanism through capacity-building at grassroots level,'' Ms Tania Goldner, Chief of UNICEF's Field Office for Madhya Pradesh said.
The Project, being taken up on pilot basis, aims at building capacities at community level to manage safe havens while ensuring that basic services, specially related to children and women (health, nutrition and education), are accessible, establishing community-based systems for ensuring protection of children and to facilitate preparation of district disaster management plans in the districts, the Project Plan Document of the initiative said.
''UNICEF, with its long experience vis-a-vis community development projects in Madhya Pradesh, is ideally suited for the disaster management initiative,'' DMI Director Colonel (Retd) AKS Parmar said. The strategy for the Project is that of advocacy, capacity-building of stakeholders, disaster management planning, community awareness and mobilisation, documentation and implementation of plans along with conduct of mock drills.
The Project also involves training of gram panchayat personnel, identification of village volunteers and training besides conducting sensitisation meetings at village/community level and training of disaster management teams. The project is being managed by a four-member team from DMI and UNICEF.
The state government, with central support, founded DMI in 1987. One of its principal objectives is to develop capacities of various organisations to effectively manage any type of disaster.