Community groups actively participated in capacity building interventions organized in Lampung Province, Indonesia from 15 to 16 May 2024. Leaders and residents of the villages of Canti, Kelawi, Maja, and Rajabasa in Lampung Selatan District attended training events covering first aid, fire safety, and temporary shelter.
These were organized by PALUMA and Mitra Bentala, two local civil society organizations (CSOs) that serve as partners of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) in the Strengthening Partnerships for Community Resilience in Indonesia and Timor-Leste (SPRINT) project. PALUMA and Mitra Bentala collaborated with other local actors such as the Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah (BPBD) in Lampung Selatan, the district’s Fire Department, and the Indonesian Red Cross in implementing SPRINT’s community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) initiatives.
Mr. Aris Wandi, Head of BPBD in Lampung Selatan District, graced the training sessions. He expressed appreciation of the efforts to complement and supplement government’s initiatives in building community resilience against disasters and climate change. Moreover, he promised full support to PALUMA and Mitra Bentala as the local CSOs facilitate more activities for and with the community groups in SPRINT’s target villages in Lampung Province, Indonesia.
SPRINT is a regional project that seeks to address low-attention disasters by enhancing the capacity of the local communities to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from disaster impacts through inclusive and participatory approaches. It is being implemented by ADPC with support from the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (MACP).
Under SPRINT, ADPC continues to provide technical guidance to its local CSO partners in both Indonesia and Timor-Leste. It also connects them with their peers in the member countries of the Asian Preparedness Partnership (APP) that include Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao PDR, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The APP is a unique multi-stakeholder regional partnership formed in 2017 with technical and secretariat support from ADPC as well as assistance from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (the Foundation) and the United States Agency for International Development Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID BHA). Its goal is to achieve “safer and well-prepared communities through locally-led disaster risk management (DRM) actions, so that disaster impacts on at-risk communities of Asia will be reduced”.
