Our Goal: To develop and implement disaster preparedness programs that will initially target six (6) disaster-prone seafarer communities in the Philippines to enhance their resiliency and serve as model communities that can be replicated nationally to any other communities in the Philippines.
The Challenge
The Philippines ranks third (3rd) among all the countries with the highest risks worldwide according to the World Risk Report, 2018.
The geographical location of the Philippines makes the country uniquely exposed to a plethora of hazards, including recurrent typhoons, earthquakes, 53 active volcanoes, floods, landslides, tsunamis, and wildfires. At least 60% of the country’s total land area is exposed to multiple hazards and 74% of population is susceptible to their impact. The combined impacts of climate change, rapid urbanization, environmental degradation, and most recently, COVID-19 Pandemic exacerbate the country’s vulnerability to disasters.
While the government fully recognizes the risk and vulnerabilities and has instituted national programs for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), the scope of disaster planning tools designed at the national level is too overwhelming for the Local Government Units (LGUs), and does not always rather ease local planning processes.
Our Opportunity
SDI, through a grant issued by the Project Handclasp Foundation, has launched Project RISE (Resiliency Improvement Support and Education) with our non-profit entity partners in Manila: PHILCAMSAT and ASSIST ASIA. Project RISE aims to address the low level of disaster preparedness capacity among communities in the region.
The objective of Project RISE is to develop and implement disaster preparedness programs, that will initially target seafarer communities, to enhance their resiliency and disaster preparedness capabilities, and then serve as model communities that can be replicated nationally to any other communities in the Philippines.
We have set our sights on six (6) communities as our target for building model communities during the course of this project. Four of the communities include the cities of Bacoor, Damarinas, Imus, and Kawit, all located in Cavite Province and the other communities include Batangas City, Batangas and Bayanan, Muntinlupa. All six communities have a high degree of vulnerability to disaster and have a high concentration of seafarer officers. Also, the Project RISE Consortium has close working relationships with the LGUs.
Our Strategy
Our approach is a policy-driven two-pronged approach, utilizing education and technology, while maximizing citizen participation.
Our educational approach involves developing and delivering educational training programs based on internationally accepted frameworks such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Reduction 2015 - 2030 as well as the ISO 22301;2019 - Business Continuity Management (BCM). The method of training delivery will be a hybrid approach combining instructor-led training and online learning. The training process involves "Train the Trainer" program utilizing about 100 seafarers, who are well versed in disaster preparedness and management, to position them to become Master Trainers and Practitioners. The Master Trainers will assist Local Government Units (LGUs) of target communities in implementing disaster preparedness programs. They will also conduct citizen training for disaster preparedness and the depth of training will involve training a diversified group of about 2,000 citizens (government workers, healthcare workers, emergency first responders, police, teachers, construction workers, youth, etc.) per community to ensure maximum outreach of our education efforts for each community.
Complementing our education approach is our technology approach, consisting of a two-part strategy. The first part is to design, develop, and implement a community-centric Early Warning System (EWS) for predicting weather outcomes. The EWS will be designed to collect “micro-level” community data from various data points of communities through ground sensors, weather sensors, IoT devices, etc., as well as "macro-level" data from weather sources such as the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), etc. The EWS will normalize and analyze all collected data and conduct predictive analytics and/or simulation to provide fact-based, critical and just-in-time information for decision support such as notifying the population of communities on how to prepare for an impending disaster, as well as when and where to evacuate.
The second part of our technology approach is to utilize smart enabling technologies to design and implement a community-based one-stop single community mobile app, using our platform, SMART MoBee, that bridges the gap between and foster collaboration among community stakeholders consisting of the public, private, and academic sectors as well as citizens of the community. The mobile app will serve as an effective tool for information dissemination to the community such as sending Alerts & Notifications to the community; delivering online training programs for disaster preparedness to citizens, as well as providing a tool for citizens to act as "eyes on the ground" able to send critical information to the LGUs regarding any on-going disaster.
Expected Outcomes
Some of the anticipated outcomes and impact of Project RISE include:
implementing an innovative working modality, through mainstream training programs and the use of a smart mobile app, that increases “across the board” awareness within the community on the importance of disaster preparedness and ensures that the community is equipped with what is needed for their readiness;
foster technical support from national agencies, academia, and private sector to LGUs to aid in the tangible implementation of disaster preparedness actions at the local level;
achieve economic stability due to strengthened local institutional capacity for disaster preparedness and resilience of LGUs; and
increase the amount of attention and resources devoted to Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) at the local level.
Come and Join Us in this Journey
As we move forward with Project RISE, in implementing disaster preparedness for each of our initial target communities, we kindly ask your assistance to replicate the RISE program to many disaster-prone areas in the Philippines. Your donation to SDI is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Come and please join us on this journey and make a difference...
