Disaster survival courses teach self-help skills

LookAtVietnam – Hearing a radio forecast about a new storm forming in the East Sea, Nguyen Thi Tuong hurriedly places some food in a high part of the house.

Women play a significant role in disaster preparedness by working on a flood control dyke in the central province of Quang Tri’s Hai Lang district.

“We were trained how to create a temporary mezzanine to store the stuff in case floods come,” says Tuong, a resident of Hai Son commune in the central province of Quang Tri’s Hai Lang district.

The 46-year-old single mother of four children stores packets of noodles and kilos of dried farm produce to keep her son and herself alive if a storm or floods hit for up to a week. “It is vital to provide women, especially those who live by themselves like me, with knowledge about surviving the disasters,” Tuong says.

International surveys on the impacts of climate change show that 70 per cent of the poor are women who will carry the heaviest burdens during more frequent droughts, floods and storms.

The figure was presented in a report by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland at a conference in Ha Noi earlier this year. The report says frequent disasters increase problems related to farming, food safety, water, malnutrition and health - roles that are traditionally handled by women in developing countries.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa, chairwoman of the Viet Nam Women’s Union, says the more women participate in sustainable agriculture and water management, the more knowledge they will acquire on climate change and disaster prevention.

Hai Son Commune in Hai Lang district is often affected by natural disasters.

“No one in its population of 5,000 will forget the storm in 1999 that caused more than 50 deaths and destroyed thousands of houses. We were unprepared,” says Doan Minh Cuong, chairman of the Hai Lang district’s Red Cross and deputy head of the management board of the Oxfam’s project on disaster management. “It doesn’t cost much to organise disaster training courses, but the long-term benefits are undeniable,” he says.

Tuong says men dominated at previous training courses on disaster preparedness organised with the support of Oxfam Hong Kong as it was thought that women couldn’t deal with disasters.

Women more careful

“Now half of the trainees are women as we are considered even more careful than men,” Tuong says. “I never thought I would be allowed to drive a boat to get relief goods, but I was provided with the necessary skills and now I am totally confident,” she says.

Nguyen Thanh Toan, Oxfam Hong Kong’s programme assistant on disaster management, a five-year project carried out in Quang Tri Province since 2005, says there have been 31 training courses for nearly 1,400 people in the Hai Lang District’s communes of Hai Son, Hai Ba, Hai Duong and Hai Hoa.

The participants have been communal authorities, propagandists, doctors, nurses, teachers and students and nearly one-third are women, Toan says. “We focus on training women, children and the elderly, who are the most vulnerable. They can’t help others unless they can help themselves first.”

Truong Dang Chuong, another resident of Hai Son Commune, now has peace of mind when he leaves his wife and children at home to join a commune force improving dykes and helping people during storms or floods. “My wife found the course in disaster prevention she attended a year ago very helpful,” Chuong says. “Now she knows how to protect our home and keep our family fed if disaster hits.”

Rajindra Rohitha, project manager of the EU Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Programme at ActionAid Viet Nam, says that spending one dollar on disaster risk prevention saves seven in the long run. He says simple measures such as developing early warning systems and reducing the risks created by disasters can make a big difference.

According to Nguyen Van Gia, an official from Save the Children Alliance, Viet Nam could suffer more from the effects of climate change because of its long coastline.

Everybody’s business

“Natural disaster risk management is everybody’s business,” he says.

Nguyen Thanh Hoang, a sixth-grade student in Quang Tri province’s Hai Lang district, has been given a colourful comic about disaster preparedness by his teacher. “If a flood comes, I will put all my books in a plastic bag, which I was taught to always bring with me in the flood season, to make sure they will be all dry, then move to the upper floor of the school,” he says.

“We have also been taught how to help our families move things to safety in the upper part of the house in case of storm or flood. Our teachers also advise us to be careful eating and playing after floodwaters recede because epidemic diseases can strike,” Hoang says.

Hoang is one of the 414 students of Hai Son Secondary School who have been trained in disaster prevention. There have been three storms since the beginning of the year, but people in Hai Lang district, even the elderly, are now more confident they can handle an emergency.

Le Van Cu, 67, and his wife Nguyen Thi Quy, 64, have to look after themselves in case a storm hits.

“But we know how to prepare food before the storm and flood season, how to prevent epidemic diseases, and how to adapt breeding and cultivation.”

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News