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CORDAID partners adopt the Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction approach
In partnership with CORDAID, IIRR has facilitated two (2) courses in Community Managed Disaster risk reduction. The first course was attended by 24 participants from 5 countries, 21 of whom emanated from organizations that are partners of CORDAID. Save the Children USA and OXFAM in Ethiopia also sent participants. The second training, which took place in Nairobi last August 2006, also had 24 participants in total. Most were from partner organizations working with CORDAID in 7 countries in the region, while one participant was from UNOCHA program in Sudan. So far, 44 staff from partner organizations working with CORDAID have been trained.
The field practicum for the second training took place in Loitoikok located at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro along Kenya’s southern border with Tanzania. Participants left Nairobi on the fifth day of training at the break of dawn for a long and bumpy ride to Loitoiktok, some 250 km away. After 5 hours of non-stop driving they arrived at the community meeting place. One group was based at the Kalesirwa community, while the other group went to Ntonet community.
The task was to facilitate the community to carry out a risk assessment of common hazards in their community. Participants had the opportunity to select tools to use, methodology and process to adopt to achieve this.
On return from the field practicum, the participants used the data to reflect on the learning from the exercise and prepared development and contingency plans for the community. The planning process was a simulation exercise that helped participants to come up with disaster risk reduction measures. This exercise was followed by a session on developing indicators to monitor the plans. There was also a session on action planning and one on group growth and development. A well-organized community group that is resilient is the ultimate goal of an effective CMDRR process, as the group will be able to withstand any hazards confronting them.
The course is a result of the lessons learnt from the Kenya Drought Cycle Management Program (KDCMP), which has been implemented in Kenya by CORDAID partners. One of the key lessons of the KDCMP project was that communities are faced with not only drought but also many other hazards such as disease war conflict, wildlife menace, floods and disease epidemics. Therefore, CORDAID and its partners have adopted a multi-hazard approach to programming. This is now reflected in the new strategic plan for 2006-2010, where Disaster Risk reduction is one of the key program themes.
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Posted on: October 18, 2006 |
