EHA

Brief report on the Roll Out program of Dipecho Project on 25th September 2009, Friday beginning at 02:00pm at Hotel Surbhi Palace, Dehradun, Uttarakhand state.

Project Title:

Localizing the HFA, Integrated Community Based DRR through Schools and Hospital Safety in the district of Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Objective of the Roll Out program:

1. Providing project overview
2. Bringing the State, District Administration and various block and local level health, education & panchayat officials as the main stakeholders and the beneficiaries at the project implementation level, together in a common platform for developing relationship and active partnership and participation for effective implementation.

Chief Guest, Special Guest & other govt invitees:

1. Chief Guest: District Magistrate Mr.D. Senthil Pandiyan IAS.
2. Special Guest speaker: Executive Director Mr.Piyush Routela. State Disaster Mitigation & Management Centre, UK. Mr.Rotella shared on state DRR initiatives and ensured active support from the department during the DIPECHO project implementation.
3. Other govt officials and dignitaries:

• Doctors from PHCs.
• District Health official.
• City Board Chairman, Mussoorie.
• Block Education Officer.
• UNDP officials: Dr. P. D. Mathur & Ms. Bhavna.

(Apologies from DM for his absence, due to an urgent field inspection at Hrishikesh.)

Participants from the implementing institutions at the 2 project sites:

1. Doctors, Administrators & Project Director/Managers attended representing both the project sites in Herbertpur & Mussoorie
2. Principals and teacher-representatives from all 10 schools from Herbertpur & Mussoorie
3. Gram Pradhans (village chief) from all 10 communities around the schools in Herbertpur & Mussoorie

Presence of project partners:

1. Seeds India, Delhi represented by Ms. Shivangi and Mr. Rahman
2. Emmanuel Hospital Association, Delhi represented by Mr. Peniel Malakar and Ms. Grace Nurila.

(Apologies from Christian Aid, Delhi.)

Media presence:

A good number of national as well as popular local media was present in the Roll Out program;
They are:

• Hindustan Times
• Navbharat Times
• Dainik Jagaran
• Amar Ujala
• Rashtriya Sahara.

Three of the local popular dailies reported the event immediately. We are expecting other media to follow soon who could not report immediately due to major festivals around.

Contents of presentations in a nut-shell:

The  program was participated by more than 50 invitees, invitees, guests including the project field team. Mr. Gopi Chand, Project Manager introduced the guests/invitees and all the participants. Mr. Peniel Malakar, Central Project Coordinator, EHA-DMMU Delhi gave introductory remarks linking and terming the Dipecho initiative as the most desired initiative of the time appealing the state, the top level implementers and the beneficiaries/disaster victims at the bottom levels to actively participate to make it a great success. Mr. P. Johnson, Managing Director/CEO of Herbertpur Christian Hospital addressed the relevance of localizing the project in the district of Dehradun esp. centering around Herbertpur Hospital & Landour Hospital as the nodal medical emergency response center. He presented the existing services of the two hospitals and the need of such an integrated preparedness for risk reductions taking active participation from the local community.

Ms. Shivangi, National Coordinator of Seeds India Delhi gave a 30 minutes project overview presentation reminded the State, the major stakeholder as their obligatory responsibility as per the Disaster Management Act, and the beneficiaries as their moral rightful responsibility to take the ownership and partnership (bhagidari) of the program for better triune preparedness of the community showing importance of hospital, school and the community as the most important responding institutions that need to be well prepared.

Mr. Piyush Routela, Executive Director of Disaster Mitigation & Management Center of Uttrakhand State, in his special message shared the state's disaster risk reduction programs. He also stated the recent outcome of the structural assessment in the city of Mussoorie and expressed his willingness to share these information with the Dipecho as an initiative towards knowledge sharing from the State. He also shared other ongoing plans and needs in brief. Dipecho project can possibly bridge the gap in the area that needs local implementation in the district of Dehradun. He ensured cooperation and support for the success of this integrated program that is implemented by Christian Aid, Emmanuel Hospital Association and the Seeds India.

The program was chaired by Ms. Grace Nurila, monitoring Dipecho project from EHA-DMMU, who helped cobbling the program well with vital information packed in between the messengers.
Dr. Samuel Jeevagan, Medical Superintendent and SAO/CEO from Landour Community Hospital,  Mussoorie gave the vote of thanks.

Feedback & Outcome:
According to the program-end feedback, the Roll Out program was greatly successful as this brought the major state players, national and local implementers as well as the beneficiaries to a common platform. This helped reminding each players their role in participation for achieving the goal of reducing disaster risks at all level beginning from their own local communities.

Presence of UNDP representatives Dr. P.D. Mathur and Ms. Bhavna in the program was an added value being one of the main implementers of the state disaster management programs.

A brief chat with the city corporator Mr. O. P. Unyal, Chairman, City Board, Mussoorie was quite thrilling. His words of assurance and cooperation was a great input to the Mussoorie implementation team. The piloting in Mussoorie sites (hospital, schools and the school communities) would provide the Dipecho project a significant output on the urban-area disaster preparedness arena along with rural-areas in Herbertpur.

We also acknowledge the contribution of the field team Mr. Gopi Chand, Mr. Amen, Mr. Nitay, Mr. Rajeev, Mr. Anil, (Herbertpur office) Ms. Alvina and Mr. Handry (Landour office) for the extra hard work to make this program meaningful to the project.

Reported by

Mr. Peniel Malakar
Disaster Management & Mitigation Unit
EMMANUEL HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION, DELHI.

29th September 2009