People living with disabilities were given a boost via the disaster preparedness training conducted by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Fiji in partnership with France’s Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.
The ministry, through its Department of Crisis and Support Centre, conducted the “Building Disaster Resilience for People with Disabilities in the Pacific” project in Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
In Fiji, ADRA works closely with the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), the Pacific Disability Forum (PDF) and relevant stakeholders to identify several communities in the Central Division where Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) awareness could be carried out and evacuation centres retrofitted to be disabled friendly.
ADRA Fiji country director Iliapi Tuwai said the activity would be carried out to support existing DRR committees within communities and to create disability awareness.
“In recent years, ADRA Fiji has been taking the lead role in implementing various disaster preparedness programs across Fiji, so this partnership with the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs will once again be aimed at building resilient communities while preparing them to respond better to disasters and at the same time equipping them well to be active in their approach to climate change,” he said.
Mr Tuwai said a key priority for the project was building the capacity of volunteers in the communities for swift mobilisation in times of disaster response.
He said this would ensure the vulnerable were not left behind during any disaster.
ADRA Fiji, in collaboration with NDMO, will also carry out retrofitting of evacuation centres with the aim of improving access and safety to address the needs of the disabled and other vulnerable members in our communities.
With support and guidance from NDMO, the project would also seek to produce a community-based evacuation centre management manual to provide support to local communities and DRR committees that manage community evacuation centres in times of disaster. ADRA said this was to ensure the evacuation centres were safe, accessible and inclusive of all members of the community including the vulnerable, disabled, elderly, women and children. The project began in November 2022 and will end in June 2024.
Meanwhile, a pre-accessibility retrofitting kit (ARK) review workshop was recently held to discuss how best stakeholders could improve accessibility at evacuation centres to further accommodate the needs of people with disabilities.
Participants included representatives from the Fiji Disabled People’s Federation, PDF National Council of Persons with Disability, Field Ready and church organisations whose properties were used as evacuation centres.
