Process document - Market Drill by Community

A community initiated Market Level Mock Drill by Waves Community Volunteer Group was organized at Sylhet. The market is situated in one of the busiest parts of the city. The six-storied infrastructure has around 75 shops in its ground floor while there is the office of a government bank (Sonali Bank) on the 2nd and 3rd floor. The top three floors of the building are used for residential purpose occupied by 35 families (158 people). So the volunteers picked this building as it covered both household level and institutional level safety through the simulation. This intervention was implemented in close collaboration with Ward Disaster Management Committee, Fire Service and Civil Defense and Surma Market Committee. Islamic Relief Worldwide under 6th DIPECHO Action Plan provided supporting role in the whole process.

The majority of the expenditure was carried by the community stakeholders themselves as Waves Social Welfare Club, a locally established club that works for different community welfare objectives, and the Surma Super Market businessmen’s committee jointly incurred the cost for the entire programme (around 75,000 BDT). Apart from that, the entire market had to be closed down for half a day which (considering the number of shops, most of which are foreign currency exchange shops and two stories of the building is for a government bank office) is banking hour and busiest business hour for the remittance and money exchange. The bank and the market committee were willing to chip in their opportunity cost and dedicate their much valuable time and financial turnover (amounting to an appropriate Taka 1 million) for the welfare of the community.

The attached document captures one such good practice from Sylhet where community volunteers and the existing community networks have put their act together to make a demonstration for the local people on disaster response and drawn their attention towards the necessity of disaster preparedness.

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Approach of IRW towards Urban Safety - Collective Action for Resilient Urban Areas.pdf Approach of IRW towards Urban Safety - Collective Action for Resilient Urban Areas

Urbanization is believed to be both – a cause and effect of economic growth, employment generation and overall development of any country. It is here to stay. The attached paper does not get into the merits or demerits of the phenomenon but, assuming it is here to stay, looks at the various aspects of how do IRW builds a disaster preparedness into it for an overall risk reduction in urban areas. It also captures approach of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW-B) in urban areas, where the communities have been empowered with a very good knowledge level on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), skill of response in case of emergency, and coordination with different relevant bodies to assess and minimize their risks.

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Answers in the Wind

This one is an attempt at documenting some of the prevailing practices among communities that help them in weather forecasting for the disaster preparedness action that they have been taking for generations on Char (riverine island) Moddha Uria. In this era of ‘objectively and scientifically verifiable’ knowledge, we cannot lay any claims of these practices being thus validated, however the veracity of many of these practices cannot also be dismissed on those grounds.

We sincerely wish that both the funds of knowledge – the traditional and the ‘rational’ could meet, only to benefit from each other. We would encourage you to read the document and draw your own conclusions. Any feedback to enrich it further would surely be welcome.This is a joint effort of IRW and SKS Foundation – a partner of Islamic Relief. [Download]

Welcome to NARRI Website

The global paradigm shift from post disaster management to pre-disaster management embraced a situation for a comprehensive and systematic approach towards disaster management. Acknowledging the need for a collaborative effort, six international NGOs viz. Action Aid, Concern Universal, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Oxfam GB and Bangladesh, have established a consortium named National Alliance for Risk Reduction and Response Initiatives (NARRI). It started functioning in September 2010 with the aim to strengthen the disaster preparedness and risk reduction efforts in the country and contribute towards meeting commitments for the Hyogo framework of Action (HFA 2005-2015). It provides an opportunity for coordinated emergency response with wider outreach.

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