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On 26 May 2023, cyclone Remal struck Bangladesh and neighbouring eastern India, its high-speed winds and extreme rainfall killing dozens of people, destroying thousands of buildings, flooding farmland and forcing over 800,000 people to leave their homes.
Near the southern port of Mongla, where the tropical storm made landfall, and the surrounding coastal villages, international aid groups quickly mobilised, alongside national and local efforts – among them, 18 newly-formed disaster response groups, each led by 15 people with disabilities.
The initiative, Disability Inclusive Risk Management, was launched only weeks before by the Disabled Child Foundation (DCF), a national non-profit organisation, and Caritas Bangladesh to train people with disabilities in disaster preparedness. But the storm quickly propelled the “self-help” teams in the country’s hard-hit Khulna district from learning into action.
“During Remal, we saw that persons with disabilities were capable of doing a lot of things in emergency response, like listing persons with disabilities (impacted by the storm – ed.), assessing loss and damage, monitoring, and consulting with persons with disabilities,” Nasrin Jahan, DCF’s founder and executive director, told Geneva Solutions.
Read the full story on Geneva Solutions.
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