Different communities, basically house owners, in the capital are taking their own initiatives to practice ‘Disaster Risk Reduction’ (DRR) as a supplement to the government efforts to face natural or manmade calamities.
The communities at different parts under Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) are making their own action plans on taking early preparations to face disasters to reduce dependency on immediate institutional response to catastrophes of any kind.
“As citizens, we have responsibilities apart from the government efforts to save our lives and habitats. We have made our own action plan on disaster by taking some particular activities,” Anwarul Islam, youth secretary of Monipuri Para Kalyan Samity told media recently.
He said the members of the Samity have already made an action plan to reduce the risk of disasters like fire, water logging and earthquake.
“We have made an emergency response team with 65 volunteers living in Monipuri Para. These volunteers have been trained to act as the first response team before the arrival of Fire Service personnel to save the lives and assets during any disaster,” Anwarul said.
As per the request of the Samity, comprising the house owners of the area, the firefighters have given training to the local inhabitants on how to use the fire extinguishers.
Referring to a recent fire incident that took place at Amin Tower, a building in his area, Anwarul said the volunteers succeeded to extinguish the fire, using the knowledge they gathered during their training, before the firefighters reached the spot. “If we didn’t have the training, fire might spread to other buildings adjacent to Amin Tower that night,” he added.
DNCC and SEEDS Asia, a Japan-based NGO, jointly took the initiative under a project titled, “Capacity Building for Community-Based DRR in Urban Areas of Bangladesh”.
The project was initiated in 2016 and currently eight communities are working under it in line with DNCC’s proposal for developing local level disaster management plan and its implementation for building a disaster resilient city.
