The key to overcome any disaster is being ready to face it.
Advocating this principle, ‘Save the Children’, an international NGO and child rights organisation, in collaboration with Rural Education and Action for Liberation (REAL), after rescuing and providing necessary aid to the people affected by the 2015 floods across several districts, is taking its services a step further by training government school students in Cuddalore on disaster management.
“We are glad to have been trained as we are now capable of helping not just ourselves but also other people in need during a disaster, ” says Alina, a trained student from Krishnankuppam. The children are provided training on hygiene and sanitation, child care, disaster management, fire safety and first-aid. They are also taught child rights.
A 10-day training session was conducted in Chennai by the organisation for the local school teachers about disaster management, who now train the children. “The school management was hesitant about the disaster management training at first, but witnessing the children’s interest towards it, changed their minds” said Kamala, one of the teachers. The students are trained in batches and they focus on training children between the age groups of 10 and 18. The session is held once in a month and they practice what they have learnt once a week.
Resource centre set up
A School Disaster Management Resource Centre has been established in Krishnankuppam and Kalkunam where the necessary resources are available in case of a disaster.
Apart from training children, the organisation has also helped a village, Vasanankuppam, one of the worst affected areas to recover from the floods. Water cans, solar-lights, mats, blankets, toiletries were provided to the 117 families residing there.
The village was also water-deprived and there was no sanitation system. REAL with the help of Save the Children built 89 toilets and provided water accessibility by requesting the government. “We didn’t have access to drinking water or toilets; it was tough to lead our lives. It is after their help that the conditions here improved,” said Bhaskar, a young resident of the village. The village was also cleaned under the Cash for Work programme, where the workers were provided a wage of ₹150 per day for ten days.
The district administration’s cooperation was a main reason for the project’s success, according to Ipsita Das, project manager and team leader of T.N. flood response, Save the Children. She also pointed out the Cuddalore District Collector T. P. Rajesh’s vital role in helping the village.
So far, Save the Children, with its local partner REAL, has reached out to 5,000 families in three intervening districts — Greater Chennai, Chennai and Cuddalore.
