Day 4: Monday, May 23

Having set in place the building blocks of children's groups and what they can achieve, we turned our attention to the topic of disaster preparedness. Mr. Sumit Joshi, the Pithoragarh district project officer for the Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre, provided the expertise. We were also joined by two friends of the MCF, Ajay Choudhary and Shailendra Rawal, who worked with the children in their groups and also helped troubleshoot the technical problems that seemed to follow us through the day.

Sumit started the discussion by describing the difference between a naturally occurring event-such as a landslide or forest fire-and a natural disaster, which occurs when lives are lost or property is damaged during such an event. He explained that while such events could often not be prevented, we could work to reduce the risk to life and property.

Power outages kept interrupting the planned slide show so we decided to once more separate the participants into four groups, with each group dealing with a specific type of disaster: earthquake, forest fire, landslide, and road accidents (which have become increasingly common and deadly as the number of vehicles plying the narrow mountain roads increases).

After an hour spent discussing and putting together their ideas, each group sent two representatives up to present their suggestions. As usual, the other groups were quick to question and challenge the ideas put forward in each presentation. This time, Sumit Joshi also weighed in with his expert opinion and suggestions. Then the children formed four new groups and wrote out what they would do before, during, and after each of the four major natural disasters. Once again they presented their conclusions to the entire group with inputs from Sumit and the other participants. By the end of the day, the young people had a working knowledge of natural disasters and different ways in which their effect can be reduced.

We also ran into some technical problems with a film Sumit wanted to show, so while he was troubleshooting, Sudhir brought the discussion back to the topic of what the young people and their community can do for themselves. He pointed out that villagers throughout the mountains would go into debt to support the construction of a temple but would not donate even a little money to improve their local school. He also asked the boys in the group to consider how closely their actions matched their words: did they help their sisters in their work or did they come back from playing and expect the girls, already busy with cooking or collecting leaves and grass from the forest, to wait on them? He then had the boys stand in a circle and pledge to treat their sisters with consideration and equality.

We received a surprise visit from an Australian nurse, Gregory, who had been working in the Pithoragarh region and heard about the workshop. He spoke briefly to the children and told them he was very impressed with their work. He said he worked with aborigine communities in Australia and the development community there looked to India for role models and ideas in their work.

We ended the day with a film in Hindi about earthquakes, why they occur and what people can do, particularly in the construction of their houses, to reduce their risk.

As usual, though the facilitators were exhausted, the children quickly rallied and used the time before dinner to hold another cultural program.

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