Jabinanum, Making an Agreement for the Disaster Risk Reduction in Burma

  Jabinanum (President, Ven. Jaseung), the social welfare and humanitarian non-profit foundation run by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, made an agreement of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) activities with Maylamyinegyun Township in Burma on May 12, 2016.

Disaster Risk Reduction, also known as DRR, refers to activities designed to improve the coping ability of local residents as well as living and surrounding environment against natural disasters such as flood, typhoon, and cyclone, etc.   

The fund of the project, coming from the KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) and the Humanitarian Partnership Program of KCOC (Korea NGO Council for Overseas Cooperation), is $250,000 annually from 2016 till 2017. The foundation took the needs assessment in the villages of Maylamyinegyun Township three times in the early 2016, and it decided to operate the DRR activities in 19 villages, which the foundation found the most urgent ones lacking the emergency response action plans and necessary facilities while they have been the first ones that can be wiped out by the surging waves. The project includes the plan of organizing committees for disaster management, installment of early warning system, evacuation drills, etc, for the people living in 19 villages and students of 15 schools.

At this agreement ceremony, about 20 people attended including the leader of the township, government officers, village school teachers and local activists, and the presidents of Share Ayeyarwaddy and BEDAR, both of which are local partners of this project. Mr. U Mau Mau, the leader of the township said, “I am extremely grateful for the launch of DRR projects in this area because we have been continuously damaged and suffering every year since the 2008 Cyclone Nargis. I would like to work as a seed to extend this emergency response action plan to other vulnerable areas in Myanmar going forward.”

Before the agreement, the foundation conducted the interviews to local residents, students, teachers and government officers in order to learn how vulnerable the areas are to disasters and how the villagers have coped with them. Based on this research, the foundation decided to establish the early warning system and do the DRR training for villagers, for students and teachers at schools, to run a class for raising awareness of disasters, to build an evacuation shelter, and to provide the emergency relief kits. This project will be operated with the support of the local DRR-specialized NGO called Share Ayeyarwaddy.

Ven. Bokyung, the Executive Director of Jabinanum, stated, “The foundation has been continuously carrying forward various projects that reduce the damages of the disasters in Burma since 2014. As the Burmese government shows great support for this project, we can expect a smoother operation and bigger impact from the project.”

Jabinanum has so far provided boats specially made for evacuation in disasters, repairing the existing evacuation paths and opening up new ones, and awareness education for villages since the year 2014 under the support of the KOICA and the Humanitarian Partnership Program.