Facilitating Community Disaster Preparedness: A Disaster Preparedness Handbook

This handbook is intended to serve as an easy-to-follow reference material for LGUs and local NGOs on how to do community managed disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction. It also aims to highlight the experiences of IIRR and its partners in implementing community disaster preparedness in the Philippines. Chapter 1 highlights the relevance of doing disaster preparedness that is managed by the community. Chapter 2 provides tools and outlines steps on how to conduct Participatory Disaster Risk Assessment. Chapter 3 provides a blueprint on how to develop a contingency plan. Chapter 4 discusses the principles in setting up early warning systems and shares sample tools used in some communities. Chapter 5 emphasizes the importance of community drills and outlines the process on how to conduct it. Chapter 6 provides guidance on the role of community emergency response teams and how to organize one. Chapter 7 outlines steps on how to develop information, education and communication materials in a participatory way. Finally, Chapter 8 discusses how disaster preparedness strengthens institutions and lead to community resilience. In some of the chapters, case stories from IIRR and partner organizations are presented