DUSAHNBE, October 27, 2009, Asia-Plus — Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS) and European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) have successfully completed earlier in October the fifth cycle of the DIPECHO project entitled, “Fostering Disaster Resilient Communities in Isolated Mountain Environments”.
According to the FOCUS Dushanbe office, the objective was to enable local communities and institutions to better prepare for, mitigate against and respond to natural disasters.
FOCUS implemented disaster risk management activities in 41 communities in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of Tajikistan and in four bordering communities in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. These activities included the implementation of 18 structural mitigation projects, in both GBAO and in Badakhshan, Afghanistan.
More than 5,000 children and educational staff at 23 local schools were targeted for increasing awareness. Activities were also undertaken to build the capacity of 120 government staff to better assess, monitor and respond to disasters.
FOCUS collaborated with Indigo Tajikistan to raise awareness of natural hazard risks through the distribution of leaflets at Indigo Sales office to reach 5000 customers. By establishing partnerships with main nine local media agencies in GBAO, awareness and preparedness information on natural hazard risk was disseminated through local newspaper and television to general populations.
Since 2003, through its partnership with ECHO and Aga Khan Foundation (United Kingdom), FOCUS has implemented comprehensive community-based disaster risk reduction initiatives in more than 320 local communities in Tajikistan. Complementing this work, FOCUS has also provided capacity building support to relevant government disaster management institutions in Tajikistan.
