Reforestation for Natural Disaster Mitigation

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In this first four-month period, the activities carried out by IDRAP were focused on assessing the condition of the village to map disaster-prone points in the village as well as identifying the causes of the disaster and what potential the village had for mitigating and adapting to the disaster. This activity was carried out through focus group discussions by village representatives facilitated by IDRAP. The discussion group was directed to make a sketch of their village and determine which points in the sketch often experienced disasters and what disasters occurred at these points. Several disasters were mapped in the drawing (sketch) they made, including floods that brought disease outbreaks, droughts that thwarted agricultural harvests and lost sources of clean water, tornadoes that damaged people's houses. 20 representatives from villages participated in activities carried out in Kendari.

From the results of the group discussions, an action plan was prepared based on the potential of the village, including construction of drainage for water channels during the rainy season, construction of rain-fed reservoirs for water supplies to deal with drought phenomena, as well as assistance for house rehabilitation for people affected by tornadoes. Because these activities require a large budget that cannot be handled alone through community self-help, the participants agreed to submit it through village development planning meetings so that it can be budgeted through the village budget and district budget, in addition to asking IDRAP to help find other alternative funding sources. The participants also asked IDRAP to facilitate training in preparing technical proposals for activities so that these activities could be submitted to the village and district governments.

“I am very happy with this activity which has opened up my thinking regarding disasters. We live in a disaster-prone area and disasters often cannot be prevented. Therefore, we as residents must adapt to disasters." Maahi, one of the participants.