A Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) campaign has been launched to encourage people to take action of their own to make the city safer and stronger from natural and human-induced disasters.
The city dwellers have been requested to take their own preparedness against mainly four disasters - fire, heavy rain, earthquake and lightning - and post their actions on social media for encouraging their friends and neighbours to do so.
This was revealed today at a workshop organized by Japan-based global non-government organization ‘SEEDS Asia’ in partnership with Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) supported by the Japanese foreign ministry at a city hotel.
The campaign has been introduced under the Seeds Asia’s project titled - “School-based Capacity Building for Enhanced Disaster Risk Reduction in Dhaka North City Corporation” implemented under three pillars - DRR education, DRR infrastructure set up, and awareness campaign - to way forwards the Bangladesh government’s efforts to make Dhaka a resilient city
School and community based urban DRR and resilience-building have become a key agenda for sustainable development and the role of local government is crucial, speakers said at the workshop.
SEEDs Asia’s Project Coordinator Miharu Sato said a video regarding the campaign was made where school kids show how every citizen can take preparedness by their own against disasters like - fire, heavy rain, earthquake and lightning.
She urged all to take actions against different disasters and share those through Facebook under the hashtag “#durjogeamraa” as the project is running a Facebook page named “Durjoge Amra (We are in disaster)” to aware community people of various urban disasters.
The project worked at two Dhaka schools - Model Academy Mirpur and Lalmatia Housing Society School and College – as a pilot basis to implement the DRR approach so that the school teachers and children can make their area resilient to disasters involving the community members.
DNCC’s additional chief engineer Dr Eng Tariq Bin Yusuf said the DNCC has committed to making the city safer and stronger from various disasters and has been actively carrying out various projects in DRR, and this school-based DRR project is an important part of it.
Numbers of disaster-related manuals and handbooks were also distributed to the teachers, students and community members across the city throughout the project period.
