Official Launch of Project

It is almost 11 months since the official launch of the “Community Capacity Development Project for Disaster Risk Reduction by Community Radio” in Hatiya Island, Bangladesh on 15^th March 2013, which is supported by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

After completing registration of the BHN Association Bangladesh Office (BHN-BD) at the Bangladesh NGO Affairs Bureau, BHN Tokyo concluded a contract with JICA for the JICA Partnership Program and started the project together with BHN’s local partner Dwip Unnayan Songstha (DUS).
 

Hatiya Island is particularly vulnerable to cyclones and is designated as one of the cyclone high risk areas. People in Hatiya have experienced huge human and asset losses by cyclones for a long time. However, the Island is still left behind in terms of easy and early access to weather and other necessary information for their security in the event of natural disasters due to lack of means.

As a new communication medium in Bangladesh, Community Radio (CR) broadcasting by local Hatiya dialect is expected to contribute to facilitating people’s access to necessary information such as disaster and weather information, basic knowledge of water & sanitation, health care and so on. We are sure CR has huge possibilities to make a lot of positive influence on people’s life in Hatiya, not only in an event of disaster but also in their regular life.

Outline of Project

The project duration is from 15^th March 2013 to 31th August 2017. The goal is to enhance the ability of people in Hatiya to deal with the disasters with the active use of community radio. We expect to realize the goal through achieving the following outcomes which are the detailed objectives of the project.

1.  To establish an operational and managerial system for the community radio (CR) broadcasting system aimed at serving as a disaster early warning system.

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

3.  To establish an environmental system that will enable the local inhabitants to actively utilize the disaster early warning system based upon the CR system.

4.  To establish an evacuation system in case of disasters in the target area.

For protecting human life from cyclones by taking advantage of CR and by enhancing people’s potential capacity, all members of this project team are working hard every day on activities to achieve the objectives of the project. These activities will be introduced soon.

 

Anna Tamaki, Project Coordinator