Originally Written: September 13, 2013
To mark the annual National Disaster Consciousness Month, CARE Nederland and its strategic partners in the Philippines carried out in July month-long activities in 36 schools located in high-risk villages across the country. In each school, the various activities were capped by earthquake evacuation drills. By the end of July, a total of 6,776 students and 364 teachers have increased their awareness about disasters and have acquired basic emergency preparedness skills such as school contingency planning and conducting evacuation drills.
The 36 schools are participating in two complementary DRR projects being implemented by CARE and partners in the Philippines – the Partners for Resilience (PfR) Project and the Scale Up, Build Up Project (SUBU). PfR is a five-year project being supported by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. SUBU is an 18=month project by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department’s disaster preparedness programme (DIPECHO). The
Although the different schools have different risk profiles, a common general strategy was adopted for all schools. The teachers are trained on Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction that incorporates Climate Change Adaptation and Ecosystem Management and Restoration. This allowed them to prepare lesson plans that incorporate DRR in regular school subjects such as science and social science. These lesson plans were subsequently implemented by teachers to raise student awareness on how they can reduce their exposure to risks. School Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committees (SDRRMCs) were also organized. These SDRRMCs carried our risk assessments and led in the formulation of school contingency plans. The school activities were capped by evacuation drills which served to create increased awareness among students and teachers about the school contingency plan, which includes the school evacuation plan, and to test the effectiveness of the plans.
While a few schools heads needed the intervention (through memoranda) of higher education authorities, most schools heads and teachers gladly welcomed the DRR activities.
“We have limited knowledge about out responsibilities as defined in the new laws about disaster risk reduction and climate change. A department memorandum also requires us to conduct quarterly evacuation drills. We try to comply with the requirements but we do not even know if we are doing them correctly. We are now confident that we are doing the classroom discussions and the evacuation drills correctly,” says Mr. Michael Pareja, a former teacher in Laminga National High School and now the principal of Waloe High School in Loreto, Agusan del Sur.
LAck of DRR capacity of teachers, location of schools in high-risk areas, and limited participation of school authorities at the subnational level were the key challenges encountered in the course of implementing the month-long activities. However, those on the ground, the teachers, are willing to learn towards resiliency. There is a marked increase in appreciation evident in all areas, summarized by Mrs. Rachel Balacdao, a teacher of Ucab Elementary School in Itogon, Benguet, we said,
“From now on, we will make the conduct of classroom discussion and earthquake drills regular, to ensure that children learn about them and are able to share the knowledge with their families.”
View and download a PDF version of this article here.
Originally Written: December 12, 2012
“Not a single house was damaged because we prepared for the typhoon,” Romie Otacan, Barangay Captain of La Flora, Talacogon, Agusan del Sur proudly reported during the Tropical Storm Bopha (TS Bopha, locally known as Pablo) joint assessment made by CARE Nederland, Assistance and Cooperation for Community Resilience and Development Inc. (ACCORD), and Agri-Aqua Development Coalition–Mindanao (AADC).
Otacan narrated that as soon as the barangay (village) received the typhoon forecast, they immediately carried out their community contingency plan, which was formulated by the community through the Climate-proof Disaster Risk Reduction, a project being implemented by the Partners for Resilience, which includes CARE, ACCORD and AADC. A day before the forecasted landfall of TS Bopha, the residents anchored their houses to nearby trees to prevent them from collapsing or from being damaged, before moving to pre-identified evacuation centers such as the elementary school, health center, and barangay hall. Village officials were also noticeably carrying out confidently their responsibilities defined in their community contingency plan.
Results of the joint assessment revealed that at least 500 houses were either partially or totally damaged in the whole municipality of Talacogon. The typhoon-ravaged Southern Mindanao, Northern Mindanao and CARAGA and left at least 700 persons dead and some 300,000 families homeless, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. Residents said that Bopha is the worst typhoon that hit Talacogon, with winds even stronger than that of Washi (Sendong) which also punched through the municipality in December 2011.
For the past years, it has been a recurring challenge to convince LGUs and communities to invest in disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives, but Bgy. La Flora and other CARE barangays in Talacogon are proof that DRR pays off.
View and download a PDF version of this article here.
Routinely cleaning and disinfecting our homes has become much more of a necessity nowadays as it helps keep ourselves and our families safe and healthy even when we spend most of our time at home.
Did you know that cleaning and disinfecting are two different things? What steps should be taken to make sure our homes stay clean even when we come from outside?
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Learn more about CARE Philippines and its initiatives for COVID-19 through:
To extend the RILHUB’s reach, we launched the Resilience and Knowledge Exchange Series (RKES) last June 2020 – monthly webinars where stakeholders and key decision-makers can share experiences, best practices, lessons learned, ideas, and innovations.
In this session entitled “Planning for Typhoons During a Pandemic: A Practical Guide”, we held discussions on gaps and challenges of existing Contingency Plans for Typhoons in light of the current pandemic as well as replicable typhoon response practices. We also formulated a practical guide that aims to help communities update their current contingency plans.
A contingency planning checklist was developed from the inputs of more than 600 registrants. The document below was the one used during a special session of the RILHUB Resilience Knowledge Exchange Series for National Disaster Resilience Month. A more detailed and comprehensive checklist will also be uploaded after completion to include additional inputs from attendees and partners.
View and download the full contingency planning checklist here.
In the third installment of the Move Up Project vlog series, let’s get to know more about the journey of the Community Savings Groups (CSGs) in Cebu City. In one of the project training sessions, some key members of the groups were able to identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats which are crucial to their enterprises.
Through the said exercise, the groups were able to plan ahead the mitigating measures and how to maximize solutions available given the existing threats to their businesses’ success.
CSGs are the entry point of the project’s Resilient Livelihood intervention. Using this social group, capacity building activities are made to diversify their livelihood options and help the existing ones become more resilient and sustainable.
The MOVE UP Project is funded by the European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid and run by a consortium of Plan International Philippines, CARE Philippines, Action Against Hunger Philippines, and ACCORD Incorporated.
In 2006, a landslide in Barangay Guinsaugon in Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte killed more than a thousand people. The event underscored the municipality’s vulnerability to multiple hazards and the urgent need to improve preparedness. Thus, prompted Saint Bernard’s creation of an early warning system (EWS) for floods, tsunamis, and landslides.
Through the collaboration of the municipal LGU, government agencies, civil society organizations, and community members, a community-based EWD was instituted. The result was an end-to-end and landscape-wide system that made use of technology (such as gauges for rain and flood levels), a promoted collaboration between stakeholders, and encouraged community participation.
In 2013, Saint Bernard’s community-based local flood EWS was recognized by the UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction for its innovative approach that combines technology and comprehensive social preparation. It was one of six projects from around the world shortlisted for the award.
The MOVE UP Philippines conducted a Community Risk Assessment in July 2019 which was designed to encourage the participation of vulnerable sectors such as women, children, and persons with disabilities, among others in partner areas B1rangay Apas and Barangay Basak Pardo in Cebu City.
The assessments were attended by barangay council members, barangay disaster risk reduction and management committee members, barangay emergency response teams, leaders from people’s organizations, health workers, and gender and development personnel among others.
Through the communities’ active participation in the assessment, appropriate and area-specific interventions are implemented by the project and barangay local governments.
Check out the video below to see the first vlog of the MOVE UP Philippines Vlog Series.
The Philippines holds valuable lessons in the merging, unique practice of Integrated Risk Management (IRM) in the urban context. The MANATUTI River Basin, which is one of the primary focuses of the Partners for Resilience (PfR) project, is located in the highly urbanized National Capital Region, specifically in Quezon City, Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, and Valenzuela (QC-CAMANAVA). The multiple jurisdictions governing the landscape and the complexity of intermingling factors present in the urban context provide a challenging arena for the practice.
The first four targets of the Sendai framework for action directly focus on the decrease of diaster mortality, affected people, economic loss, and damage to critical facilities and services. Meeting the targets is a huge task for highly-urbanized landscapes, where larger, more concentrated populations, investments, and critical facilities are exposed to higher risks. This makes all the more imperative to perfect the practice of urban IRM.
To read more about constructing IRM in urban ecosystems, click the link below to view and download the document.
Click here to view and download the complete IRM and its Complex Cities document.
A tool developed in Vietnam, to help communities develop a shared vision of positive change, in relation to community-based adaptation (CBA) and watershed ecosystem management activities.
The visioning approach for CBA supports coordinated, equitable and relevant planning for communities. In other words, it helps to identify what needs to be changed in a community or watershed ecosystem as well as supporting the creation of a vision and a plan of how to reach the desired future.
The approach can be used for CBA watershed management planning, environmental planning for natural resource-dependent people and business development. These plans can, in turn, be integrated into the Socio-Economic Development Plans of communes, districts, and provinces.
View and download the tool here.
Originally posted on https://careclimatechange.org/