The perception about disaster and its management has undergone a change following the enactment of the Disaster Management Act, 2005. The definition of disaster is now all encompassing, which includes not only the events emanating from natural and man-made causes, but even those events which are caused by accident or negligence.

Guest post by: Chicu

Content courtesy: DevNetJobsIndia

Aravali is a Jaipur based development support organisation engaged in enhancing human and institutional capacities of diverse development stakeholders, especially voluntary agencies, in Rajasthan. 

Content courtesy: DevNetJobsIndia

Water.org is a US-based nonprofit organization committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries.driving the water sector for new solutions, new financing models, greater transparency, and real partnerships to create lasting change. It envisions a day when everyone in the world can have safe water.

Drishtee Foundation is a social organization working with and for rural communitites. They are looking for a passionate candidate for an interesting opening in Saurath, Bihar. With a presence of over seven years in the Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) domain, Drishtee Foundation (DF) has undertaken numerous initiatives to ensure holistic development of communities in its areas of operation. 

Content courtesy: DevNetJobsIndia

Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT-NRTT) initiated the comprehensive livelihood focused ‘Sukhi Baliraja Initiative (SBI)’ to address and alleviate farmers’ distress. The initiative has a total outreach of 25,600 households across 320 villages of the 6 distress districts of Vidarbha and has achieved a fair amount of success in its first year of operations.

This paper by Ajit Seshadri, Vigyan Vijay Foundation highlights the poor sanitation situation in India and argues that centralized approaches to wastewater treatment have had limited success and there is a need to make wastwater treatment people centric and effective through the use of decentralized systems such as DEWATS (Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems). DEWATS are locally organized and people driven systems that typically comprise a settler, anaerobic baffled tanks, filter beds of gravel and sand, and an open pond. The open pond or the polishing tank recreates a living environment for the wastewater to clean itself, naturally.

Watershed Management Group (WMG) has opened its doors near Panchgani, Maharashtra in western India where it has partnered with a local organization, Grampari, to provide health and environment services to rural communities. Grampari conducts livelihood and local governance programs such as skills development and entrepreneurship training.

WMG and Grampari are jointly developing several programs including sanitation & hygiene and community-based watershed management.