Salam Pejuang Sigana,
Silahkan klik link ini: Peraturan Bupati Kab.Nias No.10 Tahun 2006 Tentang Protap PBP bagi rekan2 yang belum memilikinya.
Semoga dapat bermanfaat sebagai acuan dalam melaksanakan program DRR di Nias.
Good luck!
Administrator
Saya bekerja selama dua tahun di pulau eksotis ini, waktu yang sangat pendek apabila dibandingkan dengan teman-teman yang lain yang saat ini masih bekerja disana. Banyak sisi-sisi kehidupan yang dapat dipelajari selama itu (lihat http://whisnuyonar.blogspot.com/2008/02/setahun-lebih-disini.html)
Nias merupakan salah satu pulau yang sangat rawan akan bencana alam terutama gempa bumi dan tsunami. Walupun sebenarnya kerentanan pulau ini tidak hanya dalam dimensi alam tapi juga sosial. Kerentanan pulau ini akan bencana alam sudah bukan barang baru lagi, seperti yang kita tahu pulau ini terletak di patahan bumi yang memungkinkan terjadinya gempa setiap saat, tanpa seorangpun dapat memastikan waktunya.
Kehadiran koalisi ini menurut saya sangat tepat mengingat kebutuhan koordinasi para penggiat program DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) atau apapun namanya itu, sangat dibutuhkan. Bagaimana secara kolektif lembaga-lembaga yang bekerja di Nias mampu membekali masyarakat maupun aparatur pemerintahan daerah dengan pengetahuan kebencanaan. Kalau tidak salah koalisi ini merupakan terusan dari kelompok kerja/working group kebencanaan yang pernah digagas oleh Yakkum Emergency Unit, Save the Children dan UNDP di awal tahun 2007. Bagi saya siapapun penggagasnya tidak jadi soal karena bagaimanapun juga koordinasi sangat penting untuk dibangun.
Hal yang perlu diperhatikan adalah kehadiran koalisi ini sebaiknya mampu memberdayakan kapasitas lokal, baik dari sisi masyarakat dan aparatur pemerintahan. Masyarakat sangat membutuhkan pengetahuan akan kebencanaan sehingga nantinya mereka dapat meminimalisir kerentanan yg mereka miliki dan memaksimalkan kapasitas maupun kekuatan yang ada di lingkungan sekitar mereka. sedangkan di sisi pemerintahan lokal, hendaknya koalisi ini mampu membenahi atau membekali sistem penanganan kebencanaan yang telah dimiliki oleh pemerintahan daerah. Pemerintah daerah memiliki Satlak yang tentunya memiliki unit-unit kerja dalam penanganan bencana. Kita bisa belajar dari bencana yang telah terjadi dan mengambil pembelajaran dari apa yang telah dilakukan oleh pemerintah maupun lembaga-lembaga yang terlibat dalam penanganan bencana itu.
Selain itu koalisi ini hendaknya mampu berperan sebagai wadah yang bersifat koordinatif. Mengingat pulau ini memiliki keadaan geografis yang unik dan prasarana maupun sarana yang terbatas, koordinasi antar lembaga dan pemerintahan sangat penting. Diperlukan adanya suatu tempat bagi para penggiat kemanusiaan ini untuk bertukar informasi serta pengetahuan sehingga kesiap siagaan mampu dioptimalkan.
Yang menjadi pertanyaan adalah kapasitas dari koalisi ini sendiri untuk menjalankan visi dan misi kelompok. Bagaimana kompetensi anggota koalisi dalam bidang kebencanaan? Atau misi kelompok ini sendiri adalah untuk mengkapasitasi anggota yang lain? Bagaimana dengan masalah klise yang sering dijumpai di lapangan yaitu masalah ‘dana’? Ketakutannya adalah ketika pembentukan koalisi ini hanya terpaku dalam romantisme kebencanaan tanpa memiliki misi yang jelas dan terarah nantinya. Alih-alih bakal mampu meningkatkan kapasitas lokal, tapi malah nantinya koalisi ini tenggelam dalam romantisme itu sendiri dan hanya alat sebagai pengisi waktu senggang.
salam,
Whisnu Yonar
ex. relawan bergaji di Nias.
email: whisnu_ya@yahoo.com
Minimising Impacts of Disaster
By: Surya Aslim
As a new comer in the disaster-preparedness/disaster risk reduction (DP/DRR) field, the writer has always pondered over the question why people in developed countries have better coping capacity than those in the developing world. There is no doubt that their affluence has enabled them to acquire more skill, equipment, and awareness to face any disaster, than we have here in the third world.Moreover, the governments, from national to municipal and county level, have the skill and capacity to deal with distress caused by any disaster. This has helped them to tame the immediate effects of disasters, and minimize casualties and loss.This leads me to ask: why is the level of disaster-preparedness so low in our part of the globe? Is it only because of the poverty level? Is it only because our governments are weak and unable to cope with emergency situations? Is it because of negligence that we do not think of our own survival, let alone the collective safety of the people?
We always blame disasters for our miseries. However, aren’t we are vulnerable because we cannot respond to even the slightest tremor of calamity?
This makes the writer ask the following questions: Why does every disaster-preparedness project in our part of the world always have the term “community-based” in its title? Why must a special effort be made to clarify that a particular project is a community-based one?
I suspect that we have this habit of including “community-based” in a project name because our projects do not have participation of community members, top-down, and are not sustainable! (Just like a university which claims itself to be a “research university,” thus telling the public that research has never been taken seriously as an inherent part of a life in that particular academia!)
Look at the disaster-preparedness methods developed by and for people of the developed world. It can be guaranteed that their disaster-preparedness plan does not include such terms as “community-based” or “local action plan.” The jargon is absent, but interestingly enough, that doesn’t mean that the community is not participating. The level of preparedness at personal, family, and community level is very high.
For developed countries, disaster-preparedness at state, municipal, neighbourhood, and family level is common. South Korea is always prepared for any forthcoming attack from neighbouring North Korea. Mock drills are organised regularly, and the response and deployment time of vital machineries is carefully calculated.
There are many resources available in developed countries, like first aid training, building codes, early warning systems, and others. That is not simply because they have more advanced information systems, skill, or professionalism. It’s beyond that.
After working in Bangladesh for one year, the writer has arrived at a set of conclusions — albeit very naively constructed — which I offer to the public for the sake of a healthy intellectual exercise. All of the following are highly debatable, and the writer will be more than happy to receive counter arguments.
The issue of disaster-preparedness in Bangladesh and other developing countries is three-pronged:
èAt personal and family level: Creation of tacital knowledge, in order to ensure behaviour change.
èAt community level: Strengthening community mobilization and organization in order to ensure a strong self-help mechanism.
èAt national level, which comprises two aspects:
i Creation of a relatively consistent capacity across the line of authority (national-division-district (strategic decision-making level) vis-à-vis upazila-union (the implementation level).
ii Systematic and agreed division of labour (who’s doing what, where, and how) among stakeholders: particularly the government, private sector, and academia. Creation of tacital knowledge at personal and family level should be considered seriously. The problem is: lack of knowledge, and if some knowledge does manage to trickle down, it lacks the impetus for action (knowledge simply cannot make people change or move).
There is no doubt about the importance of a comprehensive and continuous awareness-raising campaign to let people know and, more importantly, to make people use that knowledge to make themselves as well as others safe. However, the writer must admit that the process of creating a full cycle of KAP (knowledge, attitude, and practice) is easier said than done.
Therefore, while awareness-raising campaigns should be made for the general population, investment in tacital knowledge, which will enable people to change and act, should be made. At this juncture, I argue that the best targets are children/students and mothers.
No one is more capable of than children. Children are blessed with better capacity for absorbing and preserving new values than the older part of the society as they are still in the state of tabula rasa.
Thus, any disaster-preparedness method at personal and family level can be introduced to them, while its benefit can be felt in the near future, as they grow up and create a bigger potion of community who are aware of what to do before, during, and after disaster.
Mothers and children are the main subjects for a behaviour change initiative. A mother is always at the receiving end of every misfortune in the family. It is widely acknowledged that they are the ones who will be hardest hit in the event of a real disaster.
Normally, she has to juggle with anxiety and fear of incapability to feed her children and to make her husband happy. In a real disaster, she will be the main actor in the rehabilitation effort at family level. Mothers have been openly exposed to danger and threats. Thus, no one else can have the ability to understand the importance of DP/DRR. They all know that their failure to do so will, at the end of the day, create misery for themselves, rather than other family members.
A great mystery of development work lies at the community level: why does a community — consisting of a group of people who have knowledge, skill, and resources –remains isolated from each other; unorganized and unable to produce a collective solution for a common issue in their own neighbourhood?
Lack of drive for self-mobilization and organisation in our communities has made everybody passive. Great effort is needed for the community to have productive collectivity to acquire, create, and institutionalize a culture of collective solution.
Mobilisation and organisation of the community will be needed most in the event of a real disaster, when every public service system collapses and presence of state apparatus is minimal. Without mobilisation and organisation an unorganised community will only cry for help, without thinking of what they can do to revive themselves with the remaining resources. At the end of the day, it will create another missing link in the chain of “relief-rehabilitation-development,” as a disaster-affected community depends on relief, rather than involving itself in a participatory self-help mechanism. No rehabilitation effort will be successful in a dependent community.
At the national level, the issues are two-faceted. It entails the need to create a consistent capacity level of state apparatus across different hierarchies. While the national, divisional, and district levels seem to have similar level of knowledge and complete picture of the issue, the upazila (sub-district) and union or village levels tends to in a modest state, not to say lack of capacity.
It is true that those in the local level will be the implementation arms of a body, however, with lack of capacity, problems will be serious in the field as preparedness, mitigation, and response level will be disrupted. Therefore, investment to enhance the capacity of upazila and union to prepare and response to disaster should be increased.
Meanwhile, systematic and agreed division of labours across different types of actors in disaster preparedness/disaster reduction is somewhat different from the “standing orders on disaster” which has been produced by the government.
What the writer is trying to emphasize here is more of a general and loose idea of a more integrative involvement of private sectors and academia to the entire effort disaster preparedness/disaster risk reduction, with government as the main facilitator.
While the academia always have extra sense and perception to analyze (potential) problem in the society, their role as a drumbeater or reminder of any seemingly remote issue should get more respect from others.
The global warming and climate change issue is developed from academia, until it becomes a collective concern of all of us. The list goes to aspects like safe construction system, adherence to building code, and early warning system. More researches from academia on disaster should be stimulated and adopted by all parties concerned.
With regard to private sector, many have witnessed their contribution in the aftermath of disaster through relief assistance. Their participation can be extended to DP/DRR initiatives, as it is more sustainable. Moreover, the fact that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaigns are mushrooming globally provides bigger opportunities a more comprehensive participation of actors in DP/DRR.
Those ideas might be scattered and their coherence questionable, but its intention is clear: all of us in the developing world have been disastrous so long, due to our incapability to deal with simplest disaster.
This trend should be reversed. Disaster will always happen, but its effect and impact can be minimized. DP/DRR doesn’t only entail survival messages, but also community organisation, harmonising capacity of state apparatus of different hierarchies, and incorporation of other actors along with their role and responsibilities.
(Tulisan ini dimuat di harian The Daily Star, Bangladesh, 25 Mei 2007).
International Disaster Reduction Day:
Children and preservation of collective memory
by: Surya Aslim
This year’s theme of International Disaster Reduction Day (October 11) is “Institutionalizing Integrated Disaster Risk Management at School.” The selection of the theme signifies acknowledgement of the role of children, students, teachers in disaster reduction efforts.
The theme also sends a reminder to all parties concerned that significant investment on disaster reduction initiatives should be made in schools. Furthermore, children and schools are the main actors for achieving sustainability.
Artificiality and collective memory
Disaster reduction is intended to minimize the vulnerability of communities under threat of natural hazards. It entails several components like early warning system, awareness, preparedness, as well as mitigation. The presence of high technology will be deemed obsolete if the real beneficiaries — the people in general — are ignorant of any preparedness measures at individual and community level. In our disaster-prone country, the government as well as donor communities have been playing a significant role in reducing the impact of potential disasters which threaten the people at regular intervals. Many initiatives and programs have been introduced, and have begun to bear fruit lately. Studies show that the level of coping mechanisms, awareness, and preparedness is considerably higher than it was in the past. Various accounts mention that many were more prepared during the 2004 flood than during the 1988 one.
Somehow, like other development dilemmas, at the end of the day, most of those concepts will be used by the common people. In other words, its sustainability is reflected by the ability and willingness of community members in duplicating those initiatives.
Unfortunately, those initiatives bear a risk of failure which is caused by artificiality of the concepts. Common disaster preparedness concepts like local level action plan on disaster, participatory vulnerability assessment, focus group discussion are examples of systemic tools which are introduced to beneficiaries in order to stimulate and nurture awareness and preparedness at community level.
Like it or not, these concepts are a set of new items which were not born in the community. These concepts need extra expertise, time, and energy to operationalize them. Thus, only during the project implementation will one see their smooth operationalization, but after the project the concepts will likely go into oblivion.
Therefore, an alternative way should be sought to make sure that disaster reduction becomes an inherent part of the life of the community. This alternative should be taken from the community itself, by using their own daily practices, daily words, daily nomenclature. Concepts of disaster reduction should naturally emanate from the community because only a natural product will have its own mechanism of preservation.
Take the following examples: Shortly after the earthquake hit the northern coast of Sumatra on December 26, 2004, people in Aceh and surrounding regions made no effort to remove themselves to hilly area. In fact, many went to the city centre to check the immediate impact of the earthquake, and were trapped in the Aceh tsunami which came 30 minutes after the quake.
Meanwhile, in Simelue Island, a backwater island of Aceh, as soon as the sea level receded after that earthquake, people along the coastline rushed to the adjacent hills and waited for the horror that came toward their coast. History has recorded that only a handful of people in Simeulue died due to the tsunami.
Why? Because, in Simelue, there’s a famous folk tale about the tsunami. The tale says that once the sea level suddenly decreases, it will be followed by the coming of a huge tidal wave toward the island. This story is based on the January 4, 1907 tsunami which hit Simelue, and has been handed over to succeeding generations. It proved to be a vital element in saving the people of Simelue on that fateful day.
Another example is the community fire fighters group in Japan. Even until today community members in Japan maintain their community-based fire-fighters groups, despite the fact that today’s fire brigade teams have been heavily modernized. Rather than being involved in the real fire fighting action, these community groups maintain their collective memory through cultural activities related to fire fighting. Each group masters its stair climbing skills which have developed it into traditional art. Annually, stair-climbing festivals are organized among community fire-fighters groups.
The two examples illustrate a community’s own initiative for preparedness, awareness, and survival mechanisms with minimal role of external actors. The two examples come by default. It is already in the blood of the community and is guaranteed to be reproduced naturally every time it is required. Preservation of collective memory
Without any pretension to be simplistic, the writer argues that preservation of collective memory will yield satisfying results by starting from schools, and making children the primary recipients.
No one is more capable of absorbing and preserving all of these than children. With all their uniqueness, children are blessed with better capacity than the elders in adopting new values.
Pride is a distinct Bengal identity. A strong literary tradition, constant reference to traditional art, and high respect for the liberation movement are examples of the existence of certain collective memories which have been preserved among Bangladeshi people.
All of those samples are widely subscribed as they are taken from the core of the community, which is the identity, the existence, and the meaning of being Bangladeshi.
And, more importantly, all of them have been preserved through class rooms, as the end of an assembly line called “National Education System.” It entails curriculum system, text books, trainings, songs, and other symbols.
What is needed now is to incorporate them into disaster reduction purposes. As present-day schools have acquired as important a status as the family in disseminating messages, school should be directed to create a disaster reduction culture.
Just like any other civic values that we have known since kindergarten days, like the importance of courtesy to other people, being honest, and being clean, messages on disaster reduction should be instilled at a very young age.
Like other good messages and habits that we have learned in younger days, and still practice today, disaster reduction initiatives will be immortalized in millions of students and teachers, and replicated at any given time, naturally and automatically.
(Tulisan ini dimuat di harian The Daily Star, Bangladesh, 11 Oktober 2006).
Pasca aktivitas peringatan hari penanggulangan bencana sedunia, UNORC, UNDP, dan Infokom BRR Nias berinisiatif mengundang kembali lembaga-lembaga yang pernah berkontribusi. Pertemuan yang dilaksanakan di Museum Pusaka Nias pada tanggal 2 November 2007 tersebut kali ini melibatkan unsur pemerintah yakni Satlak PBP Kabupaten Nias, dengan agenda Radio Talk Show dan pentingnya wadah bersama bagi organisasi yang terlibat dalam kegiatan penanggulangan resiko bencana. Dari beberapa kali rangkaian pertemuan, lahirlah kesepakatan tentang perlu adanya simpul bersama dalam upaya penanggulangan bencana di Kabupaten Nias, dengan nama Koalisi Siaga Bencana Kepulauan Nias, disingkat “Si GaNa“.
Aktivitas awal yang dipilih dan berdasarkan peta kebutuhan, adalah bagaimana mendorong peningkatan kesadaran publik akan pentingnya usaha pengurangan resiko bencana serta mendorong partispasi multi pihak akan pentingnya usaha-usaha tersebut, dengan pilihan media Radio Talk Show. Suporting sumber daya Si GaNa bersumber dari kontribusi lembaga-lembaga yang tergabung dalam koalisi.
Jadwal lengkap program Radio Talk Show bisa dilihat di link ini.
Sementara itu, bagian kedua Pekan Pengurangan Bencana berlangsung tanggal 29 hingga 31 Oktober, berupa kunjungan ke sekolah-sekolah di Gunung Sitoli. Dalam kunjungan ini, pihak panitia acara memberikan pengarahan tentang pentingnya kesiapsiagaan bencana bagi kalangan kanak-kanak dan pelajar. 
Sebab, pengetahuan yang mereka dapatkan di usia muda diharapkan mampu mempengaruhi cara pikir mereka di masa depan. Oleh karena itu, pengetahuan bencana di usia dini membuat generasi mendatang lebih siaga terhadap bencana.
Acara Pekan Pengurangan Bencana ini diperingati di berbagai penjuru dunia setiap tahunnya dan bertujuan untuk membangun kesiapsiagaan bencana di berbagai kalangan usia. Menurut kalender PBB, Hari Pengurangan Bencana Sedunia setiap tahunnya diperingati pada Rabu kedua bulan Oktober.
Kegiatan ini merupakan hasil kerjasama antara berbagai kalangan dan organisasi yang peduli terhadap resiko bencana di Nias. Turut terlibat aktif dalam kegiatan ini adalah pemerintah daerah Kabupaten Nias, BRR, pelaku rehab-rekon seperti Forniha, Holiana’a, Solidaritas, Yakkum, Johanniter, CWS, Islamic Relief, Save the Children, Oxfam, SurfAid, dan ARRNet. Sementara itu, organisasi UN (PBB) seperti UNORC, UNICEF, UNDP, dan UNOPS turut berperan aktif dalam penyelenggaraan kegiatan ini.
SiGaNa adalah sebuah inisiatif kolaborasi yang berangkat dari kebersahajaan. Embrio SiGaNa dimulai akhir Oktober 2007 lalu seiring dengan penyelenggaraan International Day for Disaster Reduction (IDDR), di Gunungsitoli. Setelah itu, pelan tapi pasti, perhatian dan dukungan terhadap SiGaNa kian besar.
November 2007: SiGaNa meluncurkan program Radio Talk Show bertema Pengurangan Resiko Bencana
Desember 2007: SiGaNa memberangkatkan 40 orang anggotanya untuk mengikuti Pameran Nasional III Siaga Bencana di Padang, Sumatera Barat. Kontingen SiGaNa adalah kontingen terbesar yang hadir di acara tersebut.
Januari 2008: SiGaNa mengadakan Lokakarya Perencanaan Strategis (Strategic Planning Workshop), dipandu oleh Yuniarti Wahyuningtyas, dari CDE (Consortium on Disaster Education), Jakarta. Setelah lokakarya tersebut, SiGaNa mendapatkan sebuah bangunan sekretariat dari BRR Nias.
Poin-poin di atas menggambarkan sepak terjang SiGaNa yang sangat progresif belakangan ini. Prestasi ini tentulah sangat membanggakan.
SiGaNa bukanlah situs biasa. Situs ini sangat terbuka dan transparan bagi seluruh pengunjungnya. Demikian transparannya situs ini, sehingga kami berani untuk menantang anda semua mengupdatenya.
Password situs sigana adalah:
Jadi, bila anda suatu ketika menemukan situs ini dan bermaksud memberkan komentar, anda tidak perlu meng-klik tombol “Comment”. Kami berikan ada passwordnya sekalian! Hayo, kurang apa kami ini!
Horee….!!! Akhirnya SiGaNa punya situs, walaupun gratisan. Begitulah SiGaNa: orang-orangnya kerja tak digaji, melakukan kegiatan tanpa ada pos biaya, namun ide hampir tak pernah berhenti. Jadi, ketika keinginan untuk punya situs sudah sedemikian kuat, namun biaya tidak ada, maka situs gratisanlah jawabannya. Tapi, biarlah. Sing penting, sekarang SiGaNa punya situs.
Tes….tes… Moderator blog ini masih belajar bagaimana mengoperasikan situs ini.
siganakepulauannias
Situs Resmi SiGaNa 
