DISASTER RISK REDUCTION

Reduce in the loss of lives and livelihood of the communities of North district of Sikkim and the Hill districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong of West Bengal

Disaster Preparedness: Awareness, Sensitization and Capacity Building Trainings of the Communities and Stakeholders
Nobody can assure earthquake safety unless everybody in the community is aware of earthquake consequences and gets prepared. Being prepared alone will not work always for others. Therefore, empowerment of the community through various awareness and sensitization programmes at the community level will be one of the key strategies for making prepared individuals from the communities and different stakeholders. Mainly such programs will be focused on: earthquake basics and potential/existing risks in the target areas, earthquake preparedness and risk reduction measures, ways to respond during and after earthquake, pre- positioning emergency supplies, acquiring life-saving skills, safer construction and other related issues.
Developing Response Plans and Conducting Drills/Simulation Exercises:
Realizing the fact that in case of any disaster situation, the first responder is the victim himself/herself then the family and the community it is of utmost importance to provide Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment trainings along with First Aid and other related capacity building trainings. These trainings aim to make empower individuals and enhance awareness and skills of the community on the associated hazards and vulnerabilities; prepositioning the emergency supplies; making response plans; and make capable to cope with disasters using locally available resources.
Mason Training for Earthquake Resilient Structures and Seismic Retrofitting of damaged structures:
These trainings aim to capacitate the skills of masons on the target villages to construct Earthquake Resilient Structures and conduct seismic retrofitting of damaged structures. The strategy that will be adopted for this is that first Master Trainers comprising of Phase I Masons, Project Staff and Engineers from related line departments will be trained by the Technical experts who in turn will train masons at the village level.
Community Level Trainings:
Capacity building trainings of the community on trauma management during disaster situation will be conducted. Extensive trainings on Water, Health and Sanitation along with Menstrual hygiene will be conducted exclusively with women and adolescent girls.
Innovative Models: For Soil Erosion control and added livelihood to the communities
Horticulture/Fruit crops have been proposed to control soil erosion to avoid landslides as well as to give the families added livelihood options. This will represent best practices for environmentally sustainable disaster mitigation measures and will also produce direct economic benefits for the vulnerable local communities to enhance ownership of the process.