Project : Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur

According to records of the Sundarban development board , the Sundarbans have been affected by at least one severe natural disaster after every 3-4 years in the last 50 years.

The islands in the Sundarbans are, apart from being highly prone to floods and cyclones, also annually severely affected due to breaches in embankments caused by high tides in the months of October-November. This causes large-scale destruction to mud houses and adversely affects thousands of acres of cultivable land and fish ponds due to saline inundation. Being affected by natural hazards annually and also because of the extreme poverty conditions, very poor and difficult communications, the people of the area generally and the socially vulnerable persons in particular, are progressively loosing their resilience and capacity to recover. The geographical location of the Sundarbans and its dynamic ecosystem makes the area most vulnerable and will be the first area in India to be affected by rising sea level due to global warming.. There is a very distinct possibility of large-scale displacement of thousands of families when this happens.

Being such a situation Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur has felt the need of shift of paradigm in its strategy for Disaster Management in Sundarban Area. Strengthening people with their own and local wealth and effort are appeared to be more important than to make the affected people relief-prone. Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur in collaboration with DIPECHO and Welthungerhilfe has decided to conduct a pilot work in disaster preparedness in four selected villages of Sundarbans.

Four villages in the South West of the Sundarbans have been selected under this Community Based Disaster Risk Management Project: Lakshmipur (Kadwip Block), Beguakhali, Mahishamari and Shibpur (Sagar Block).

The project villages' consisting of almost 2000 household's with more than 12000 people. The main livelihoods are fishery and small scale agriculture. Poverty line, definition, percentage, census data, One more sentence

The CBDRM project of Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur aims at strengthening the capacity for disaster response of the local people and institutions. The main focus lies on the motivation of people to move from scoping with disasters through receiving relief to an actively participation in a holistic disaster management and to build up the required capacity on different levels. To reach this aim we analyse their situation with them together, agree on responsibilities for different tasks and forming groups accordingly. These task force groups as well as existing Self Help Groups and individuals are trained in required skills like early warning, search and rescue, first aid, shelter management and preparation of survival kits etc. Disaster actions plans are developed by the villagers together with the local government and a network amongst the villagers with local administration and institutes is developed.