Reducing Climate Hazards of Sundarbans Community

According world risk report 2016 by UNU-EHS, Bangladesh ranked fifth in the disaster risk among the world. People in Bangladesh are often affected by water-related natural disasters, including floods, riverbank erosion and cyclones.The geographic location of the country is not so favorable. It is located in a disaster vulnerable area and due to this Bangladesh becomes the worst victim of natural calamities causing colossal loss of lives and properties. Major disasters that occur in Bangladesh are: tropical cyclone, tidal bore, flood, tornado, river bank erosion, earthquake etc. A large number of poor people are to live in vulnerable areas of the southern part of Bangladesh. The adverse impacts of all the natural hazards are affecting socio-economic conditions.

Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS) is a nonprofit, non-political community-based development organization which has been working on Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) activities in the Sundarbans region since 2016. BEDS has established a “Cyclone Shelter and Training Center” adjacent to the Sundarbans mangrove forest. BEDS has formed a Union Disaster Management Committee (UDMC) and provided CMDRR training to the committee members as well as established an emergency fund for the villagers.

Recently BEDS has conducted a survey to collect information from the villagers to analyze the services provided by UDMC. BEDS have collected information from 30 villagers who live in 4 different union parishad of Shyamnagar sub-district of Satkhira District which are adjacent to the Sundarbans mangrove forest. The survey was done to analyze the service acceptance/happiness of UDMC from villagers in terms of pre-disaster information dissemination, assistance during disaster, post disaster uplifting and regular disaster preparedness training.

BEDS regularly conducts meetings with the local villagers and provides suggestions to the local climatic vulnerable people on disaster preparedness. BEDS trying heart and soul to mitigate the disaster risks of coastal vulnerable people. Recently BEDS is trying to raise funds through the GlobalGiving platform for the project entitled “Reducing Disaster Risks of the Sundarbans Coastal People”. We want to help the flood affected people under this project.  We are extremely grateful to our donors for their continuous support. We would like to request all our donors to start monthly recurring donations for our project.