International Day on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015

In responding to International Day on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 with the theme “Knowledge for life” launched by United Nation, Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD), one among 3 co-financing organizations (with Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) and Malteser International (MI)) together with other core members of Climate Change Network in the Centre of Vietnam (CCN) hold a half day ceremony in Danang city.

The event occurred in the morning of November 9th, 2015 with 160 participants from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Ministry of Labor, Invalid and Social Affairs, Branches/ Departments of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, Organizations/ Clubs of people with disabilities and villagers from disaster prone districts/provinces/ cities, including Thanh Hoa, Quang Tri, Hue, Da Nang and Quang Nam.

Members of the organizing team

The event included different activities such as pictures display, case studies sharing DRR experience, IEC materials, local products marketing; ceremony for awards of communications and community initiatives. All these activities emphasized on the goal of the 2015 IDDR launched by the United Nation that aim to:

* Raise awareness of the use of traditional, indigenous and local knowledge and practices, to complement scientific knowledge in disaster risk management;

* Highlight approaches for engaging local communities and indigenous people in implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

During 4 hours of the event, through a variety of performances, the community people from different locations in central region of Vietnam, in particularly the people with disabilities clearly showed that they are the one who know the best on how to help themselves to be safe in disasters; and that traditional experience and indigenous knowledge are always in good use and application for all. Therefore, if everyone can share and apply the above mentioned knowledge with others, it will help contribute to the community’s resilience.

Overview of the event

Bringing to the events, SRD contributed 3 communication items from 3 projects sites including Thanh Hoa and Quang Tri, 3 case stories and 4 pictures displaying disaster coping experience and activities as well as a lot of IEC materials. Final results in communication competition, the first and second prizes belong to the SRD project partners. "This is truly a good opportunity for us to come and see how other communities cope with disaster. We will share what we learn from the event to our people when we come back to enable us to actively participate in disaster coping for the sake of entire community".

The case story that won the skit contest

-SRD-