Listening to the Communities

Abstract

The communities in the Indian sub-continent have learnt to live with disasters. The Indian subcontinent has been stuck by massive natural disasters in the recent decades. The catastrophic supper cyclone in Odisha in 1999 was followed by mega earth quakes in 2001 and 2005 in Gujarat and Kashmir respectively. The visual impact of the live coverage of tragedy caused by Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, was fresh in the memory of people in the sub continent until they witnessed the Indus river floods in Pakistan in 2010 that devastated lives and livelihoods of over 20 million people. The memories of tragic Indus floods were taken over by multi-hazard disaster in Uttarakhand in the summer of 2013 at about 3,583 m (11,755 ft) above sea level, dubbed by the media as “Himalayan Tsunami”.

From Indian Ocean Tsunami to Himalayan Tsunami, the constant feature in the aftermath of all disasters is that communities have been the first responders and communities are the ones to stay back in the area to deal with future hazards with new wisdom and enhanced resilience. But the question is, are we (non-government organizations, donors, government agencies, research institutions, etc.) listening to the communities or are we interested only in telling what communities should do to deal with disasters?

The chapters discusses the comparison and difference between the concept of participatory appraisal and listening to communities. The chapter suggests that, listening to communities is much more than mere consultation and participation and it implies looking at the issues from community’s perspective and having pure & objective understanding of issues that are context specific. While development professionals can be trained to become ‘experts in participation’, listening to communities requires development workers to undergo a mentoring to improve thinking and behavior and it must be promoted as an attitude alongside with participatory tools and approaches.

Taking Indian Ocean Tsunami as an example, this chapter discusses the role of communities from first response to the last action in the aftermath of massive disasters (like Indian Ocean Tsunami). Based on field experiences and a set of researches that inquired the issues of gender and social inclusiveness, participation, HIV AIDS, accountability, shelter and risk reduction, in the Tsunami affected areas of India and Sri Lanka, this chapter analyze the impacts of Tsunami response as a result of listening to communities or lack of it. The chapter will high light the role of local knowledge, capacity, and priorities of communities in effective disaster response and its sustainability and calls for greater attention to empathetic listening among humanitarian workers.