Disaster Risk and Resilience: Understanding Perceptions, Exploring Possibilities Lessons to be Learnt from the Curious Way of Life
Organizer: Confederation of Risk Reduction Professionals (CRRP), Risk & Resilience Institute (RRI)
| What is disaster risk? Should disaster risk reduction strategies be designed based on the definition that ‘we’, the intellects and the academicians, understand? What about the perception that a community has of its disaster risk? Shouldn’t that be accounted for? But are we aware of the varied and contradictory perceptions of disaster risk? Floods, for us may be a hazard, an extreme event, but there are communities to whom flood is a blessing. How do we propose to manage disaster risks in such communities? This session would take the audiences through a journey – a journey across the state of Assam in India, exploring undocumented cases, in form of stories, of adaptation, preparedness and resilience. We often tend to ignore the power of indigenous practices, traditional knowledge and rely heavily on science and technology – these stories would prove otherwise. The stories would portray how the rural communities are more ‘risk literate’ and ‘risk savvy’ than the population with access to plethora of tools. The COVID-19 pandemic has ensured that we do not get to go back to our usual lives. However, this is no excuse to refrain from engaging with communities. In such times, how do you go about it? How do you indulge and interact with people to understand their perceptions and perspectives, how do you nudge individuals of a community to think about the root cause of their problems? The second half of the session would take the audiences through an experience of community engagement, limited within the restrictions imposed by various protocols of COVID-19, with an agenda to understand how the urban crowd perceive development? Do they blame risk-un-informed planning and development as a factor causing issues like urban floods? The session would present a framework for engagement with stakeholders or community, stimulating them to analyse their exposures and vulnerabilities, develop an understanding of disaster risk and think about addressing it in some way. The session would be an outcome of 3 month long project carried out by CRRP and RRI, with support from ICCROM, during the period of COVID-19 imposed lockdown. The project has been executed completely by youth and young professionals, all below the age of 30, and therefore the lingo of communication of science and risk is at par with the contemporary vernacular of our society, especially India. |
Speakers:
Repaul Kanji, Co-Founder & Director, Risk & Resilience Institute
Saran Prakash, Member, Confederation of Risk Reduction Professionals
Bhola Saha, Assistant Professor, Royal Global University
Amrita Sabhapandit, Assistant Professor, Royal Global University
Dikshya Saikia, Assistant Professor, Royal Global University