Lutheran Disaster Response

How’s that for timing? I’m in Bangladesh in part to visit our partner Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Services (RDRS) to see some of their projects on disaster risk reduction and climate change programs and the video they made with DanChurchAid on the same topic won an award from COP17 climate conference in Durban this past week.

We had the privilege of viewing Ripple during our LWF communications workshop and I have to agree that it’s a great video. It gave me some well-needed background before I begin my visits today, especially around the difficulties caused by chars. Chars are fertile sand bars left after flooding that run a high risk of re-flooding since they by nature exist in flood planes. Since Bangladesh is an extremely population dense country, when chars form they are almost immediately inhabited by the poorest members of Bengali society. Since they have a high risk of flooding there tends to run a cycle of re-impoverishment for people living on them as they continually are flooded out of their homes.

I would highly recommend taking 11 minutes out of your day to view the video, especially if you’re from Australia (it’ll make sense when you view it).