”Community Capacity Development Project for Disaster Risk Reduction by Community Radio”

Background

Located in the Bay of Bengal, Hatiya Island is designated as a Cyclone High Risk Area. Every year the island suffers damages by cyclones and their incidental high-tides, especially in the coastal areas.

 

   

However, at the time of imminent disaster, the most important disaster information & warnings are delivered by Community Preparedness Program (CPP) volunteers running & carrying loud speakers since the days of ‘70s.

 

Being delivered by ”human power”,its distribution areas and information accuracies are limited. Also, even after the warnings of approaching cyclone, some part of the islanders won’t move to evacuate due to the lack of confidence on the information or by the concern of their properties and livestock.

 

　

With such background, we understood that, in Hatiya Island, it is necessary to establish media to collect accurate weather & disaster warning information from the Meteorological Agency, as well as the necessity to deliver this information fairly and simultaneously to the inhabitants.

Further, as it is also necessary for the inhabitants to understand such information correctly and move to evacuation , we have concluded to implement this project. We plan to implement this project with Dwip Unnayan Songstha (DUS) and Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communications(BNNRC).

 

Project Purpose

To enhance the ability to deal with the disasters with the active use of community radio.

1.  To establish the operational & managerial system of the community radio(CR) broadcasting system which is aimed to become a disaster early warning systems.

2.  To establish the weather & disaster protection information broadcasting system specialized in the target area to minimize the disaster risks.

3.  To establish the environmental system that the local inhabitants could actively utilize the disaster early warning system based upon the CR system.

4.  To establish the evacuation system against disasters in the target area.

 

 

We have preliminary approval of the above project from Japan International Cooperation (JICA) as JICA Partnership Program.

With an eye forward the launch of the project in autumn 2012, we have opend BHN Association Bangaldesh Office and applied for registration as an International NGO in Bangladesh at the NGO Affairs Bureau (NGOAB). After completion of the registration, the 5-year roject will be officially started. 

 

Anna TAMAKI, Project Officer