Disaster Watch :: Activities

ACTIVITIES

Disaster Watch aid grassroots women's collectives to exchange learn and evaluate disaster response initiatives and the performance of government and aid agencies.

First held in Gujarat in February 2002, a year after the earthquake, when a team of women from disaster sites in Turkey and India travelled there to monitor institutional support for women communities.

In June 2004, a team of Turkish women leaders visited the earthquake-affected areas of Bam in Iran with members to transfer their insights on organising women around childcare and income generation activities.

In January 2005 grassroots women from maharashtra (who had similar experience in Latur earth quake in 1993) visited tsunami affected areas of Tamilnadu and shared their experience.

Learning Exchanges

In 2006 Grassroots women from Tsuami affected villages of Tamilnadu visited Sri Lanka to share their learning in health, water and sanitaion.

In 2008 Sri Lankan grasroots women visited Tamilnadu to learn the livelihood initiatives in post tsunami response.

In February 2009 Grassroots women leaders from Kenya and Nigeria visited Maharashtra to learn and share sustainable livelihood iniatives. This was also an opportunity for Indian grassroots women to learn the intervention in HIV/AIDS by women groups in Africa.

Community led Assessment
Disaster planning is usually top down. Reversing this trend, information generated by community-based organisations is key to sustainable disaster risk reduction strategies. As a first step of this initiative, assessment guidelines workshops, evaluations were held in Turkey , India , Jamaica and Honduras.

Practitioner Policy Dialogues
Such dialogues bring together NGOs and CBOs and key stakeholders to provide space for grassroots groups to effectively demand infrastructure and services investments. A team from Turkey and GROOTS International visited Bam in Iran in June 2004 to evaluate the interventions by the Govt, and multilateral agencies.

TRAINING ON DISASTERS
World Bank Hazard Management Unit GROOTS International members working on community-level disaster response gave a training programme to World Bank staff and academics on April 6, 2004.

Our Life, Our Film
From an insider's perspective, this unique film, directed by eight women from the earthquake-ravaged region of Kutch , India takes stock of their struggles in rebuilding their lives.

Chaos to Creativity
A GROOTS film on three disaster sites in Honduras , India and Turkey . Children speak of the impact of disasters while local women come out as problem solvers in the community.

Women's Cooperatives
Eight Kadin Cooperatives in the Marmara region manage women and children centres, organize savings and credit groups, run helplines, negotiate catering contracts and link to local authorities.

Women Builders
A book by Max Martin, was published by Books for Change in 2003.
It is an account of women breaking barriers, rebuilding habitats and restoring livelihoods after the earthquake in Gujarat.

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OUTREACH AND NETWORKING

Documenting Our Practice
Innovative solutions add to the growing volume of knowledge that new groups can access and learn from on bottom up recovery strategies and advocacy methods they have used to make institutions accountable.

Web Forum
This interactive platform (www.disasterwatch.net) acts as a node for sharing local initiatives and up streaming lessons from grassroots initiatives.

Disaster Brief
A quarterly e-update to inform field activists, researchers and policy makers on grassroots initiatives in disaster reduction.

Tsunami Update
Pools together information on communityresponse and initiatives in South Asia
Tsunami Dec 2004.

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