Integrating disaster risk reduction into climate adaptation
Mass awareness campaigns on livelihood security and climate change issues have been geared up in the project areas. The activities help them attain capacity to combat disaster and for its management.
Awareness building for disaster preparedness through folk song performance
A large number of villagers at Uttar Haldibunia under Mongla upazila of Bagerhat district, assembled at a nearby school, where a group of schoolgirls, were performing a 'Zarigan.' The performers were trying to make villagers aware about the ill effects of climate change and asking them to act before time runs out.
The special event was organised recently as part of the climate campaign launched under a project titled, 'Improved Food and Livelihood Security (IFLS) Project' in the context of increased disaster risk and climate change apprehension in Mongla, Rampal and Sharankhola upazilas of Bagerhat district.
Disasters can hit any time and at any place. But they always hit poor people the hardest. And for poor people, climate change is not just another cause of economic loss. It threatens the very possibility of escape from poverty.
Global warming is increasing the severity and frequency of cyclones, storms, droughts and floods. If poor communities do not adapt to a changing climate, these events could well keep on increasing their distress.
Rising sea levels mean that low-lying coastal areas of Bangladesh may disappear altogether. These resulting disasters have a devastating impact on poor people's ability to farm and therefore their access to food.
Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM), Caritas Bangladesh, ADD International and ITN BUET have been jointly implementing the project funded by donor agencies the European Union and CAFOD, UK.
Launched in 2010, the three-year project will be wrapped up in 2013. Seventy-five thousand beneficiary families have been brought under the project. The families consist of poor, physically or mentally challenged people and the families headed by women.
The Project Coordinator, Md Mukhlesur Rahman of DAM, said, "The choir girls are providing vital knowledge on weather and climate, climate change and disaster risk, etc," He further said, "All must rise to the challenge before time runs out," adding, “Villagers in the disaster-prone area must take part; the event aims at raising awareness among them.”
The event was followed by an integrated disaster risk reduction simulation exercise. This helps the communities identify hazards in their surrounding, their needs and develop disaster response plans.
During a visit to the house of Gobinda Biswas, a villager at Uttar Haldibunia village, his wife Uma Biswas informed that she had successfully cultivated vegetables on the courtyard of her house. She earned 15,000 taka by selling vegetables in the ongoing season, she said. "Salinity increased on land after 'Aila,' a natural calamity, but DAM came forward to help me. Now it has been possible to cultivate various salinity-tolerant vegetables on my land", she further said.
Like Uma, Sabita Biswas of Kanaimari village in Mongla upazila and Dulali Mondal of Betkata village narrated their success stories saying they have defeated poverty through salinity-tolerant cultivation.
Caritas Bangladesh supplied saline-tolerant fertilizer, seeds and medicine to them. The NGO also motivated the income-generating activities like goat rearing and crab cultivation.
Contacted, CAFOD Coordinator Umme Kulsum informed about usage of ultra-violet ray for water purification in the disaster-prone locality. “Various initiatives have been taken to resolve the crisis of water in the area, she further informed.
Salinity tolerant vegetable cultivation at individual homestead.
The Field Coordinator of IFLS Project, Uzzal Kumar Kundu, said eradication of salinity is the main challenge of local people. IFLS Project has been helping locals to combat the issue with technical support resulting in poverty alleviation.
Contacted, Mongla Upazila Nirbahi Officer Dr Mizanur Rahman said because of the NGO initiative, the economic condition of local people have beneficially changed, through vegetable cultivation, poultry farming and similar activities.
Courtyard meetings, disaster risk reduction simulation exercise and 'Zarigan' have been regularly organized to make people aware about the issue.
Moreover, poultry and lamb rearing and crab cultivation are encouraged to raise family earning and fighting malnourishment.
One of the implementer of the IFLS project organized advocacy campaigns with the officials of various government directorate, NGO activists and media personalities to attain rights of mentally and physically challenged people. It also distributed goats, lambs and cows among them to create income generating activities.
Another implementer helped form 36 community action groups comprising 432 members and 36 community volunteer groups comprising 252 members. Training and orientation courses were organized for them. Eighteen exhibition plots of various kinds of vegetables were created at the dwelling houses of 33 beneficiaries. Fifteen beneficiaries got financial assistance for poultry and petty business.
Besides, improved varieties of poultry birds and goats were distributed among 167 beneficiaries. Alongside, 2,250 saplings of saline-tolerant fruit-bearing trees were distributed among 750 families. The aims were to make the targeted families self-reliant by increasing income through livelihood diversification.
Mass awareness campaigns on livelihood security and climate change issues have been geared up in the project areas. The activities help them attain capacity to combat disaster and for its management.
Under the programme, income of the families of targeted population in the three upazilas increased by conducting environment-friendly farming -- pisciculture, livestock rearing and through adoption of alternative means of livelihood. In the meantime, food production has also increased considerably through cultivation of salinity-tolerant variety crops in the upazilas.
The writer is a communication activist
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