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One Wish: A cyclone shelter
26.12.2014
   

“I like working with Red Cross”, she says with a shy smile, when asked why volunteer for the Community Disaster Mobilization committee. Chakati Santoshi is like any other girl from a coastal village. She studies Management in a college located around 30 kms away for which she rides a local bus for an hour and a half every day. And yet the spirit of volunteering for her community keeps her smiling.

She is one of the 6 women in the team of 12 members of the Community Disaster Management Committee formed under the Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction Programme (CBDRR) of the IRCS with support from the Canadian Red Cross.

As part of the assessment of impact of 10 years of post-Tsunami programmes being run in these coastal villages, we visited Mogadalappadu Garamandal, some 50 metres off the Andhra Pradesh sea coast. The Indian Red Cross Society has been running the Community based Disaster Risk Reduction Programme (CBDRR) in 32 communities of 12 districts of Andhra Pradesh supported by the Canadian Red Cross since April 2010. The objectives of this programme were to increase the capacity of the vulnerable communities to deal with disasters as well as create community mobilization and disaster response teams to help communities in evacuation, rescue and relief should a disaster strike. Since the most vulnerable of the people are the women, thus the focus is on increasing representation in both these teams.

Komara Paulamma, at the extreme left in the photo, also a part of the Community Disaster management Committee remembers the horrific landfall of the Tsunami, 10 years ago. “The water kept rising like a huge wall, no one knew where to run and there was widespread damage of boats and nets, the main components of our livelihoods.

At that time very few knew how to swim, women and children did not know what to do, as most of them are dependent on their husbands for decision making. But being part of the Red Cross disaster risk reduction programmes for so many years, communities are aware of what to do when calamities occur. We could avert and minimise losses during Cyclone Hud Hud this year and cyclone Phailin, Helen & Neelam in the previous years. The Red Cross programmes have given us confidence and courage and we know there is someone to support us apart from the Government,” she tells us proudly.

The coast of Srikakulam district stretches almost 200 kms by the sea with around 38 mandals comprising 415 villages. The people of these villages are dependent on the fish from the sea both for selling as well as for their own food. And every time the sea decides to be rough on them, their vulnerability starts to appear like a sore. People are evacuated to nearby schools that double up as shelters. Sometimes it is tough on the volunteers as older people do not want to leave their homes and it takes a lot of coaxing and convincing to evacuate them.

As the team prepared to take leave, we were so moved with the 1500 strong population of this little village, that despite the barrier of language, their one wish continues to stays with us, with hope for a brighter future, “a dedicated cyclone shelter.”

 
 
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