A four-day workshop on “Community Resilience and Institutional Preparedness” organized by the transdisciplinary pursuit of Disaster Research Programme (DRP), JNU in Kolkata, West Bengal has begun on January 30 and will last on February 2 in the Sundarbans.
The workshop marked a large number of administrators, academicians and scholars discussing issues related to community resilience in Sundarbans which is identified as a fragile ecosystem.
The workshop was inaugurated by Hon’ble Minister of West Bengal for Disaster Management Janab Javed Ahmed Khan. He emphasized on preparedness. The state of West Bengal has institutionalized early warning systems which is run by a very dedicated team of leaders both at the state and district level.
Further disseminations were carried out by Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar who highlighted issues related to preventive measures and early earning system and learn the best practices of progressing towards the creation of disaster risk reduction. He spoke on installation of seismograph which is imperative and pre monsoon studies which should be conducted.
West Bengal State Disaster Management Authority delivered the welcome address. Vice Chairman of Bihar State Disaster Management Authority Anil K Sinha in his keynote address, opened the discussion on Community Resilience and institutional preparedness by bring up the complexity of the definition of “Disaster” as to be open ended. Director of NIDM Prof. Santosh Kumar spoke on volume of loss that causes socio-economic losses and how schools and colleges should be focused upon for the training.
Principal Investigator of the Disaster Research Programme and Chairperson, Law and Governance Prof. Amita Singh, summarized the framework within which the workshop is planned with administrators and academia experts.
Core Research member of DRP and Associate Professor JNU Dr. Sunita Reddy highlighted community level people who are the first responders should be well equipped with skills, knowledge and information through state and district level initiatives.
The brainstorming session on community resilience brought into light copious issues like salinity, embankment construction in Sundarbans creating second generation problems, disruption caused in Flora and Fauna.
Additional Secretary Transport Department Dr. Jiban Chandra Chakraborty, Senthil Kumar, Prof. PK Joshi, Anurag Danda, WWF covered the environmental aspects and the challenges faced during the previous years
The issues, good practices, research ideas, past field experiences have been shared on a common ground leading to structuring a framework and understanding the challenges that will be realized to conduct studies in the five areas of research – State and institution, Vulnerable groups, household level survey and livelihood issues, utilization of information and communication technology, environmental changes and indigenous knowledge.
The workshop aimed to understand community resilience of the people in the newly declared Sundarban district.
