Summary
Madagascar is a country that is prone to cyclonic activities. At each annual rainfall period, several regions are subject to flooding, sometimes causing significant human and infrastructure impacts. The communities of these regions often face reality without knowing what attitudes and behaviours should be adopted to deal with the risks of disasters. It is with this in mind and in correlation with its mission of ‘living for others’ that the FJKM Protestant Church has developed the FJKM volunteer programme with the support of Diakonie KatastrophenHilfe (DKH). This partnership was developed in several stages. Launched in 2015 for a pilot activity for the establishment and training of 240 volunteers, it was continued in the years following, with the aim of reaching 9,000 operational volunteers by January 2018. The current project will be ending in the month of June 2018.
The purpose is to:
- Establish volunteers who are trained in disaster risk management (early warning systems, community mobilisation, core humanitarian standards), so as to be operational and effective 2 days before, during and 10 days after a disaster.
- Structure and organise volunteers in 4 pillars (protection, data collection and management, distribution, rehabilitation) so as to be consistent with the coordination and sharing of responsibilities for better effectiveness and efficiency.
Thus, the main activities are:
- Establishing a partnership with the National Risk and Disaster Management Office (BNGRC).
- Selecting priority regions according to the national contingency plan.
- Training volunteers to be trainers in each pillar (in total 255 volunteers).
- Training of 8,745 volunteers
The project has seen a broad participation of the representatives of the State through the BNGRC as the coordinator of all humanitarian actions in Madagascar. As stakeholders, in addition to the local communities, the administrative, religious and traditional authorities at the local level were also involved.
SAF/FJKM is a member of the clusters, which include all the organizations working in the humanitarian field in Madagascar. Volunteers can serve all organisations by collecting and feeding back information that will later enable decision-making.