Role of volunteers in disaster management

Youths volunteers play a significant role in disaster anagement. From beginning to end of disasters youths and volunteers will have to follow certain strategies, programs which are very essential in the field of disaster management. The youths and volunteers engage themselves and follow certain strategies. 
Usually, during flood most of the houses in the flood prone areas are inundated as the level of house is low than that of water flow during flood. As a result, houses become ineffectual for living for several months. This situation can be coped-up easily by making the house level high comparatively to the level of water flow. In this stage Economic Strategies are taken into consideration.
Savings is seen as a main coping strategy for most of the households in the disaster prone areas. Saving is prerequisite for economic security and also related to development. Immediately after the disaster hard cash is needed but most of the people do not have any. To mitigate the post disaster economic challenge savings of money and other things is most effective and it should be started before the disaster. Household should save regularly with savings groups or NGO with an intention that they can take loan from their savings during and after any disaster. Community people in in their direct supervision operates a specialized Club-Samity in the rural areas. The programme of this Club-Samity will be expanded in the remote area especially in the disaster prone areas so that community people of that region can engage themselves in savings procedures. Moreover, youths and volunteers operates a great number of Club-Samity in the community level and this platform can also be used as a savings organization for the community members. Motivational activities through this channel of youths and volunteers will be executed in the community so that the people of disaster prone areas are encouraged to take part in savings either in youths and volunteers or any other organization.

Motivational activities are also focused. Volunteer members will distribute leaflet, announce through mike, arrange community meeting, and arrange theatre for increasing awareness among the community. There are some indigenous coping strategies followed by the the affected community years after years and which are academically recognized also. After flood, availability of food is the main challenge and at that time cooking system also stooped due to inundation of locality. As a part of disaster preparedness, youths and volunteers & other volunteer organization will motivate the community to store dry food such as; Rice, Puffed Rice, Chirra etc and that will ensure the food security immediately after the disaster. To solve the problem of cooking Portable Chula is one of the options. youths and volunteers will take  initiatives to make the community knowledgeable about making Portable Chula so that during disaster they can take this with them in a safe place or after disaster within a short time they can make it to continue their cooking. During and after the disaster, health issue becomes worst in some areas.

To mitigate this vulnerability, the community should have some knowledge on these issues. Community people will operate awareness raising program especially on the Primary Health Care (PHC) and health problems due to disaster, shelter centre and training issue so that the health and disease condition do not deteriorate during the disaster period. Tube-well is the main source of drinking water in the community. During flood, it is also inundated and community faces crisis safe drinking water for a long time. In the community level Community people will take initiatives so that every family increases level of platform of tube-well before flood period. Initiatives will be taken to prepare Club-Samity house as shelter center and as well as resource center especially the structure will be strengthen in the disaster prone areas. Youths and volunteers will make the community understand to reach cyclone shelters and other safe places. Training by the youths & volunteers may be arranged in the Vulnerable Areas on disaster awareness & preparedness and on various occupations such as crop production, Livestock, Poultry and Fisheries so that the affected people of the disaster. These trainings can significantly contribute to build up awareness & preparedness of the vulnerable people in the hazardous areas. The coverage of disaster management in almost all the training program may help the members in local capacity building for combating disasters.

During Disaster youths and volunteer's roles are directed with the spirit of first Response team, Relief chart and Gender issue.

Youths & volunteers will be the “First Response Team” as they belong in the community. They will keep close contact with the disaster management committees and with the media to disseminate the early warning of disaster regularly. They will manage to circulate the alert through announcement from the mosque, miking and community radio if available. As the members of the Bahini lives in the community by inherent, they are ever ready to participate in evacuation operations in case of any disaster. Immediately after the disaster, the most important issue youths & volunteers will do that is to organize the community and make and make everyone understand to go to shelter centre or any other safe place. Each and every community people will know about the force as disaster manager. This will help to increase the confidence level of the disaster prone community.
A comprehensive database is most important during the disaster period. If it is possible get the exact number of affected people, it will be helpful to maintain the relief management. To prepare this database youths & volunteers can play an important role with the Govt. Number of family members will be included in the database and every family will get a relief card before disaster and during relief distribution youths and volunteers will ensure the law and order in the community. Youths & volunteers will develop “Relief Distribution Chart” for the affected community by using their own resources and time to time it will be updated. The chart will incorporate the need assessment and situation of relief distribution in the affected community. It will be helpful for any organization to decide where relief is needed or not and what types and what amount of relief is needed. The chart will be available in all youths & volunteers units, Union Parishad, Upazilas and Districts.

Female and children in the community become more vulnerable during disaster. They play different types of roles to mitigate the hazards and disasters. Female youths & volunteers will motivate the females in the community to reduce the damages and losses during the disaster, so they are more vulnerable. They are not interested to come to the shelter center as they face some problems. Youths and volunteers clubs will act as shelter centre and those will be secured enough for the female to come there willingly. Again in Post Disaster activities the youths and volunteers need to take care of the following, such as Housing, Relief & Food, Health and Disease, Discipline etc.

In Context of limited abilities of the government where actions should be taken to increase the community’s as well as institutional abilities to help withstand hazardous events, the grass root experience, especially in built environment, can form an effective knowledge-base to plan for future. Public and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) interventions have the potential of being successful at preventing major crisis. In so far as governments have the foresight and the discipline to adopt effective strategies there are serious opportunities for reducing the adverse effects of crisis and hazards.

Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed