Grass Roots Response to Disaster Management

Community Based Disaster Management (CBDM) Training in the Philippines

Over the last two decades, there has been a growing realization that many top-down approaches to disaster manage-ment fail to address the specific local needs of vulnerable communities, ignoring the potential of local resources and capacities and maybe, in some cases, even increasing people's vulnerability. For such contexts, the importance of community-based approaches to disaster management has increasingly been recognized. Thus, ADPC, in partnership with Duryog Nivaran (DN), started offering international training courses on CBDM in 1997. In 1999, ADPC started to collaborate with the Center for Disaster Preparedness (Philippines) in improving the course. Five courses on CBDM held in 1997,1998, 1999 and 2000 evoked an enthusiastic response from the disaster management community in Asia and the Pacific. Responding to the growing need for learning opportunities on community-based approaches worldwide, ADPC in partnership with the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), will offer a Training of Trainers course on CBDM.

AIM

To enhance understanding of community-based approaches to disaster management through sharing of systematized knowledge, information and experiences.

OBJECTIVES

• To examine different disaster management models and approaches, and to analyze the validity of community-based approaches to disaster management.
• To introduce various participatory tools in community-based risk assessment, and to practice them in a chosen disaster-prone community.
• To identify various risk reduction measures that can be undertaken by the community, and to translate these measures into a community-level action plan.
• To cite lessons by providing an opportunity for sharing experiences.
• To identify various steps involved in developing a training course design and training evaluation.
• To discuss methodologies for teaching adults.