Valuable Workshop on Building Cultures of Preparedness and Resilience offered in the Philippines

The Community Development Society of the Philippines (CDSP) and the Disaster Risk Reduction Cluster of the College of Social Work and Community Development (CSWCD DRR) organized the “Workshop on Building Cultures of Preparedness and Resilience Trainers Training” on Aug. 8 – 12, 2011. Japan Foundation provided financial support to the training. Forty individuals, including members of the training team, attended the training. Participants came from Metro Manila, the provinces of Iloilo, Northern Samar, Leyte, Cavite, Laguna and Indonesia and Japan. Most of the participants are CDSP members from the academe, NGOs and local government offices.

The training discussed the following topics: Key Concepts and Elements in Disaster Risk Reduction; Disaster Situationer: Philippines Context; Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act; Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (CBDRRM) Framework; Participatory Damage and Needs Assessment (DANA); and, Participatory Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis (PCVA). Resource persons had very extensive experience in disaster risk reduction and management work.
 
The participants had the opportunity to apply their learnings when they did their PCVA workshops with community members from two field sites. Both these sites experienced heavy flooding during typhoon Ketsana in September 2009.
 
The participants were very satisfied with the inputs and discussions during the five-day training. They presented their plans on how they can integrate the knowledge and skills learned from this training in their own fields of work. The training had a lot of workshops and structured learning exercises to provide the participants with training tools and exercises which they could use in their future trainings. After the trainers training, the participants will conduct workshops in their own regions and provinces from October to December 2011 with participants coming from local government officials, people’s organizations, academic institutions and non-government organizations.
 

On Aug. 11, on the occasion of the 5th month after the Great East Japan earthquake, the training participants joined other groups in the university for the candle lighting ceremony as an expression of solidarity with our Japanese sisters and brothers.

 
Prepared by Aleli B. Bawagan, Chairperson, Community Development Society of the Philippines