Promoting Awareness about Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) through Education on Climate Change Adaptation (2011)
Climate change is a concerning issue in worldwide and as a low lying land, Bangladesh is prone to the adverse effects of climate change. Green house gas particularly carbon dioxide; sulfur dioxide and methane are key responsible for increasing the temperature of world atmosphere and major pollutant of our climate. In response to this, climate resilient activities and adaptation strategies are incorporated in national and international level as most priority issues.
On 10th January, 2011, ECDO actively arranged a district level sharing meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in Sylhet Sadar. The purpose of this meeting was to create awareness among community people regarding how to adapt with climate change and manage the risk of different kinds of disaster by using existing mechanism. Mr. Abu Sayed Mohammad Hashim, honorable Deputy Commissioner(DC) of Sylhet & Mr. Enamul Habib, Upazila Nirbahi Officer(UNO), Sylhet Sadar Upazila were present respectively as chief guest & special guest in that meeting. Moreover, Environment activist, NGO activist, Lawyers, Human rights activists, renowned Media personnel, students & other civil society members were also attended at that meeting. At the ending of the meeting, all the participants had realized that only government infrastructure or model may not reduce the risk of natural and human induced hazards. Instead, through proper coordination of strategies of both government and non government agencies, most of the risks of disasters can be minimized. Moreover, participants had understood clearly about the ways to cope up with catastrophes during and after the time of disasters and how to keep people safe from such hazardous situations. This meeting was organized by ECDO under the project Capacity Strengthening on Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation with support from Concern Universal Bangladesh (CUB).
In Bangladesh, most of the people are not much aware about the reasons as well as the impacts of climate change and lack of knowledge regarding the issues of climate change at grassroots level of several NGOs becomes a matter of concern. In line with this, after three years, on 29th January, 2014, ECDO hosted a climate Change workshop jointly with the Jaintia Shinnomul Songthsa (JASHIS) and the Climate Council Australia at MC College Sylhet. The main aim of this workshop was to educate the participants with basic knowledge about global warming, climate change and risk of natural disasters. The event brought together international and national climate change specialists, local development professionals, regional government officials, academics and students. The event was chaired by the Executive Director of JASHIS, Mr. ATM Badrul Islam. The Chief Guest was Professor Will Steffen, a Climate Change Scientist and Researcher from the Australian National University (ANU) and Councilor of the Climate Council Australia. Special guest was Mr. Sarder Shafiqul Alam, a Fellow at Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), and Climate Change Adaptation Expert and National Capacity Building coordinator of the ARACB Program. The participants had discussed about the climate change adaption strategies, particularly community based adaptation and recognized the importance of tackling its adverse impacts because without minimizing the effects of climate change, it would not be possible to improve the present condition of poor and marginalized people.
