Preparing a resilient community – disaster risk reduction in Kashmir

A disaster is on a rise. Kashmir is known as the “the heaven on earth” is also not untouched by this hard reality. The State has been under constant disaster situations whether natural-made or man-made. The socio-economic and political situations have remained controversial despite a great cultural heritage.

The disaster caused by the deluge in 2014 shows the trail of apathy and unpreparedness at the community level. The 2005 earthquake that struck the northern parts of the valley repeated its experience as the people were clueless and unprepared to cope with it. Needless to say, the response was haphazard and the rehabilitation unplanned, without much consideration for sustainability and leading increase in vulnerability rather than reducing it.

Caritas India initiated SHIRKAT, an Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction programme with the support of the Catholic Social Service Society (CSSS) to reduce the risk of disaster and increase the community’s capacity through engaging and training them on different aspects of the disaster. The last few years have enabled the people to build robust community institutions in the form of Task Forces and SHGs and Farmers Club. These institutions have been instrumental in mobilizing the marginalized populace with their knowledge and experience and gaining visibility locally.

The past two years have crippled the lives of people in Kashmir due to the double whammy of pandemic and geopolitical situation. The imposition of an indefinite lockdown impacted every dimension of life in Kashmir. People were deeply affected by the arrests and detentions, economic distress, health problems, and breakdown of public services including education and health. Inevitably, the impact on people’s physical and psychological health and access to healthcare was severe. These geopolitical changes have put on hold all the operations in Kashmir including the continuation of the ongoing SHIRKAT programme.

With the unlocking, Caritas India resumed the SHIRKAT programme in 10 villages from 6 Gram Panchayats of Pulwama district to rebuild robust community institutions in the form of Community Resource Teams (CRTs) and Task Forces. These institutions have been instrumental in mobilizing the marginalized populace with their knowledge and experience and strengthened further to extend their visibility at the block and district level with different actors and work towards mobilizing the required resources and become transition ready to take ownership of the programme. Therefore, the current intervention is focusing on the development of participatory disaster risk reduction through a community-led approach by incorporating the strategy of Empowering Animation, Dialogue, Volunteering and Sharing Community in 10 villages of District Pulwama.

The Accelerated Resource Center (ARC) centre will be strengthened enough to act as an intermediary between the community and service providers, especially on the issues related to Disaster Risk Reduction. These ARCs will be managed and owned by the Community Resource Team (CRT) or members appointed by them in consultation with the project team and community members. The objective is to maintain a database of health, education, skilled and non-skilled, potential partners and concerned departments, capacity building of CRTs, collection and dissemination of information, strengthen Disaster Management Teams, liaison with CBGs, resource mobilisation, volunteer engagement and working in close coordination with district authorities.

CSSS has conducted the programme baseline in all ten intervention villages on DRR, Health (Covid-19), Education and rights and entitlements, where volunteers were engaged for more acceptance from the community and empowering of local human resources, Team and volunteers engaged 245 families in whole baseline process.

Fr. Justin Thiraviam, Director of CSSS and Sr. Program manager Niamat Ali conducted an Internal workshop cum review for the 27-Community Resource Team (CRTs) and Disaster Management Teams (DMTs) members to capacitate and strengthen the community ownership and liaising for availing benefits for building community resilience and community preparedness.

The program team has also organised a multi-stakeholders interface meeting at Reshipora Awantipora block where all the line departments were present with their district heads, more than 300 people and community representatives to share their plans publicly for better governance and transparency.

The element of preparedness was integrated with the schools by involving children in the Earth Day celebration at Govt. Primary school Gadhanjipora and middle school RAMS Reshipora. The program was held on the occasion of Earth day related to School safety disaster preparedness and climate change.

Community Livelihoods support helped 10 families in Gadhanjipora to start vermicompost supported under Shirkat in collaboration with KVK Pulwama. People expressed their gratitude to the SHIRKAT team for proper guidance and timely support. Shabir Ahmad one of the farmers is very happy as he is supporting his family through this initiative.

These small initiatives will help to rebuild the communities with greater trust and resilience to build back better and be prepared for any future shocks.