Every year disasters caused by natural hazards put millions across the globe at risk and cause losses worth trillions.

Disasters occur throughout the world, each more destructive than the other. People lose their loved ones, homes, livelihoods and most importantly their resilience, leaving them emotionally weak and unable to bounce back from the catastrophe they have experienced.

In most cases; it is not the disaster itself that causes the travesty. Other factors like unplanned and unsafe construction, lack of early warning systems, lack of knowledge on safety measures to be taken before and after the calamity etc. are the real causes for destruction and loss of life. Natural calamities re beyond our control, there in nothing we can do stop them from occurring, but we can surely minimise the damage caused by taking appropriate steps before and after the event.

What We Do

Humanitarian Relief
Acting with urgency to save lives and help affected families get back on their feet is our overarching goal. Some families have almost nothing left to their name after disasters; being responsive to their needs and immediately providing them with some basic items takes away their feeling of helplessness to some extent and also helps ease some of their anxieties. Our humanitarian action includes providing immediate shelter support in form of tents, utensil kits, hygiene kits etc.

We also establish temporary learning centers to make sure education continues even in times of emergencies. In many cases, Children are observed to be unable to cope with post disaster challenges due to their physical and psychological vulnerabilities. We provide them with learning kits with the hope of bringing back some normalcy into their lives and ensuring their psychological welfare even after their routines are completely disrupted.

Recovery and Rehabilitation
Disasters and their adverse impacts set communities back by decades and leave them vulnerable to physical, social and economic hardships. This may inhibit large sections of the affected communities to come back even to the base level, let alone develop at par with the rest of the nation. While relief work helps communities fulfil their immediate needs, it is important to have a strong recovery and rehabilitation program as it is not just about restoring what was lost, but also about helping communities bounce back better and building their resilience.

We conduct a thorough damage assessment after a disaster to evaluate the quantum of loss. This helps us in gathering of information related to the impact of an event, or series of events, on life and property such as houses, schools and hospitals. Based on this information we form our medium and long-term development strategies.

As part of our rehabilitation process we rebuild homes, schools, toilets, community centres etc. All our constructions are low cost and disaster resilient. We build using technology that protects the structures from natural calamities that they are exposed to. We make sure all our solutions are locally adaptable and produce minimum carbon footprints.

Disaster Risk Reduction
While we cannot stop a disaster from occurring, we can definitely minimise its damages. With small investments towards risk reduction we can save countless precious lives. Early warning system is one such example. They help alert a community of a disaster before it occurs, giving them time to take necessary steps to protect themselves.

Effectiveness of the early warning system depends solely on the participation of the community. If these systems are too complex for the people to understand, or if the community lacks knowledge on what is to be done after a warning is issued, the systems are of no use. Thus, it is important to install systems that a community understands and capacitate them to respond accordingly. Therefore investment in risk reduction is not just limited to establishing an early warning system. It also includes development of disaster management plans for communities, training programmes for multi-stakeholder groups, demonstrations and drills, taskforce training, village level planning, school safety and a strategic partnership between the government and the community.