Building disaster risk reduction awareness and practice in Donggala, Central Sulawesi
Donggala is one of the most vulnerable district in Central Sulawesi. Situated on the tip of a triangle, it is frequently exposed to all kinds of natural hazards: earthquake, tsunami, flood and landslide.
Like in many places of Indonesia, people tend to link natural hazards with God’s fate or curse to mankind for their wrongdoing. Lack of understanding also leads to wrong practices.
After the massive destruction of Tsunami in North Sumatra in 2004, people in Donggala associate earthquake with tsunami. Since then, the villagers run to higher ground whenever there is an earthquake, leaving their home behind to save their lives. Some local thugs have made use of this situation by stealing items from these vacant houses.
To governments and communities, responding to emergencies is common but disaster management is a different story.
“We used to respond to disasters only during emergency events and never take mitigation measures prior to it,” Mr. Madjid, the Head of Kesbanglinmas office of Donggala district said.
Oxfam’s “Strengthening the Capacity of Government and Communities in Disaster Risk Reduction project*” in partnership with Jambata Foundation started in Donggala district in 2008 to build awareness and practice on disaster risk reduction at community level.
Myth buster
“It is important to demystify disasters because it can be scientifically explained,” Robert Owen Wahyu, the Head of District Geophysical Station (BMKG) of Palu emphasises.
Short Messages (SMS) containing information about earthquakes are sent as soon as two minutes following each earthquake with more than 5 Richter scale by The BMG central office in Jakarta. The information includes the scale, exact location, and tsunami potential of each earthquake.
The SMS service is provided throughout the country. The district office forwards SMS from BMKG central office to key stakeholder and communities in vulnerable areas. with the station used to get sponsorship from a Singapore-based telecommunications company. Although the sponsorship was ended recently due to the global financial crisis, they’re currently seeking for new sponsors.
Building capacity
Oxfam and Jambata trained community representatives as Village Preparedness Team (VPT). They learned about the nature of each hazards and how to respond to them properly. Participatory risk assessment is conducted at community level by Jambata staffs, together with local community organisers, and VPT. Community action plans (CAP) are then developed based on the assessment to reduce vulnerability.
This complete cycle of risk reduction measure serves as good example to the locals how to address disaster by knowing the risk (hazard, vulnerability), and taking proper measure based on analysis.
Bridging the gap
Take Towale village for example. This coastal village has been repeatedly hit by seasonal high tide and flood. During times of hazard, daily activities like going to schools or going to the markets have to stop temporarily because the transportation routes are disrupted. Students and teachers have to wait for at least three to four hours before the water level is low enough for them to continue walking to school. This could happen for five to six days each season, once to three times a year.
Using CAP process, the community identified the community action plan as building semi permanent bridge connecting two sides of the village will allow schools, markets, and other activites to continue without disruption. The plan was chosen to be implemented with financial support from Disaster Reduction Fund (DRF), provided by Oxfam’s project. Now that the bridge was built, the communities’ economy is not as fragile as it was in the past. This is one of the best learning of this project–addressing the right priority of vulnerability can lead us to a valuable outcome.
Planting seeds of awareness and practice
Education sector plays significant role in growing seeds of awareness and practices. It was first started with training elementary school teachers how to deal with emergency situation caused by natural hazards. The focus is finding the right media to familiarise students with natural hazards and teach them what to do when it happens. Training for teachers has proven to be the right priority since we found that they easily transfer the practices to students. A daily familiarisation of earthquake rescue and evacuation for students has been organised and the first school evacuation drill will be organised in August.
A holistic approach
Jambata and Oxfam introduced a more holistic paradigm of disaster management to the members of Disaster Response Task Force (Satlak PB) of Donggala through series of trainings organized by It is expected the paradigm shift will then lead to policy shift in managing disaster risk.
Currently, the draft Contingency Plan for Donggala is being finalized by a government working group. They plan to lobby the District Chief (Bupati) to formalize the draft afterwards. District Action Plan (RAD) on Disaster Risk Reduction will also be revised.
The project is now on its second and final year. So far, people of Donggala learned to rely on information from BMKG before taking any measures. The project has successfully changed the way people see natural hazards. The provincial government realised the importance of disaster risk reduction as the Head of Regional Development Planning Body (BAPPEDA) Donggala committed to continue government’s support and to make disaster reduction a priority.
this article was published on bulletin CONNEXION of Oxfam GB East Asia in July 2009 on my behalf
