NAGAPATTINAM: An unwritten law of the sea states 'Women and Children first', highlighting that women and children should be the first to be rescued in case of life threatening incidents.
Catching on with that rule, as many as eight schools located over Nagapattinam coast are equipped with State-of-the-art solar powered early warning system to mitigate both life and property loss during disaster like situation.
All the eight schools have been constituted with as many as three task forces per school for the purpose of sending out early warning, evacuating, and rendering first aid to the vulnerable populace at the time of disasters.
Aimed at increasing capacity to reduce disaster risks and also to build resilience for school children during disaster like situation, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based early warning system titled as "Using Connectivity to Build Resilience of Children and Their Communities" has been implemented in two village panchayats of the district.
The first phase of `5 lakhs worth project funded by Save The Children NGO and Nokia India was said to be accomplished as scheduled by March 2016. Since Nagapattinam district is a disaster prone zone having witnessed extensive damages during 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and frequent cyclones and floods affecting coastal community, it is said that two panchayats namely P R Puram and Thirupoondi East were selected for implementing the resilience building system.
As a part of the projects, about eight schools including six government schools were selected for installing state-of-the-art early warning system.
“Since children are the most to get affected in disasters by both psychologically and physically, the first phase of implemented disaster management system aims at enhancing the resilience of coastal children. Besides serving disaster management techniques, the coastal children would be prepared to secure themselves and also their dear ones.” said, R Manivannan, project coordinator, Avvai village welfare society.
As the eight schools each were set up with School Disaster Management Resource Centre (SDMRC),
the geographical representations of the 10 villages including locations of water bodies, schools and safe houses would be digitized through the implemented disaster management system.
Similarly, acting as regional head for the early warning centres in schools, two Village Disaster Management Resource Centre (VDMRC) have been established at Thirupoondi East panchayat and P R Puram panchayat.
All the 10 early warning centres are equipped with 40 inch LED TV, computer, inverter, and 60 watt solar panel each to ensure power supply even during the emergency situation where electricity supply would be cut off.
Through the disaster management system, as many as 2,194 children across the eight schools would be shielded during the times of disasters as they are sensitized with proper safeguarding mechanism.“As of now, having accomplished the first phase of project, based on the warnings from District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), the early warning centres would alert the locals.
On a long run, we are planning to bring on an exclusive communication system that enables information sharing between the villages and National, State level disaster management agencies for swift evacuation and disaster mitigation.” R Manivannan added.
As many as 10 resource centres have been established each in the 10 villages of the district for facilitating early warning ahead of disasters, during normalcy, it is said that the resource centres equipped with solar power panels, audio visual gadgets would provide educational and informative activities to the rural children in coastal hamlets for capacity building.
As the 10 villages in two panchayats of Nagapattinam district are implemented with such disaster management system cum resilience building locations, the private stakeholders of the project have sought the governments to take forward the project to all the coastal hamlets for mitigating life and property loss.
