Resilient Recovery Planning

The UNDMT has been training a host of people in resilient recovery planning (RRP) across the country, and I got the opportunity to participate in it held at Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, India. It was also a good opportunity to meet some of my friends in the same sector.

The training lasted for three days (16-18 October 2012), and we had about 25 participants. Lots of very good reading materials (known as Guidance Notes) were given. The objective of the workshop is to build a group of humanitarian actors to help UN organizations, UNDMT, Government and other humanitarian agencies for resilient recovery planning from 3 months after any major disaster. Other than for the field visit which took nearly six hours of travel for about 45 minutes of interaction with the community, the workshop was very good, although sometimes we jumped off the scheduled times of sessions marginally. 

It was nice  to meet Sanjay Bhatia, Abha Mishra, and several other old and new friends from across the country. The training is part of the International Recovery Platform's commitment to promote recovery resilient planning.

Little Surprises

I had days of little surprises throughout the week. Of them, two are more important as it involved visits by some of my friends. The first one is of Dr. Erich W from Germany. He had gone to Raiganj and was on his way back to Germany and had reached Kolkata on 27th morning. In the evening I joined him and two of his companions. We had some wonderful remembrances, little chat about my visit to his home nearly four years ago, the plans I have for strengthening higher education of children from tribal families and the plans he has for the village he and his companions support in Malda district. We had a wonderful dinner at Big Boss restaurant in the China Town, Kolkata. On 28th morning I had the opportunity to reach him to the airport and say "Good Bye".

On 29th I got a call saying that Mr. Mishra, a friend of mine from Odisha state of India was in the neighboring state of Jharkhand and is planning to visit me along with a few more friends on 30th Sept. And we had the visit of Fr. George Uthirakulam and Fr. Varghese Pally along with Mr. Mishra. It was really a big surprise, thrill and to say the least, I was excited. I took them around Bolpur - Shantiniketan, we had some good mutton curry for lunch, lots of talk about what I am doing now and how things are with CKS. 

Thank you friends for making the week a memorable one. The joy of your arrival still lingers on. Hope to meet you all soon again..

TWIS Gets Recognized

The Tide and Wind Information system which we started an year ago in G-Plot panchayat area of Patharpratima, South 24 Parganas District, West Bengal had spread to neighboring Brajabhallavpur panchayat area too. In G-Plot the non-profit organization IDASS was helping CKS for field coordination, and in Brajabhallavpur, Sabuj Sangha and Concern Worldwide jointly supported for the same. Now, this has been recognized by DIP-ECHO, the European Commission for Humanitarian Aid supporting Disaster Risk Reduction programs in the country, as a best model that can be followed and replicated.

Much of early warning in India is generic and non-actionable. This means, people get general information about the cyclone. However, they do not know either the possible impact of the wind speed on the community or the height of the tides at vulnerable points and ferry Ghats (Ghat is the local word for a wharf/jetty). We are working with our partners to ensure that people get access to as much scientific accurate information as possible in a way that is understood. Center for Knowledge and Skills (CKS) is the resource agency working with the communities in streamlining the system. Community members, boatmen, fisher folk and early warning task force members were oriented to the global positioning system handheld devices. GPS readings for specific points were then taken and coordinates sent to the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) for incorporation into their own management system. At INCOIS computer scripting and satellite information management process takes about 7-10 days. Following which INCOIS generates tide and wind forecasts for next 3 days for the entire West Bengal coast, with locations segregated. The data are sent to the partner organization Center for Knowledge and Skills (CKS) who then sends out a SMS every evening to volunteers (often a shop keeper, a school teacher or a member of the Ghat committee) in the community. The message giving details of wind speed and tide level for the next 3 days are updated on manually operated display boards placed on 10 different ferry Ghats and markets where they are visible to everyone.  The manually operated display board has the following information which is color coded.

            ·         The dates for which the information is given

·         The expected height of the highest high – tide.

·         The warning level (Green / Yellow / Red ) for the location (in terms of tide height)       

·         The expected maximum wind speed

·         The direction of wind speed

·         The warning level (Green / Yellow / Red ) for the location (in terms of wind speed

After the message is received by the early warning group it is further disseminated to school and community members through the use of Flags, sirens and megaphones by the warning task force members at school and community level.

CKS would be happy to partner with other organizations for strengthening the system in the states of West Bengal and Odisha.