though it was long and hard, our trip was very interesting and useful and we gathered many new experiences and knowledge. We, members of the Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) of Hanoi and Quang Nam, spent ten days in Vinh Thuan Dong commune, Long My district, Hau Giang province in the South of Vietnam joining a government Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) training organized by the commune’s technical assistant group. Through our participation, we wanted to find out how inclusion is instructed in CBDRM trainings as well as how it is implemented in the Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) and planning proccess on village level later on.

DPO members are obsevering the session of drawing a hazard map.

Even

During the ten days training we found out that the facilitators and other participants did not use the specific skills needed in order to mobilize the people with disabilities. Thus, the local people with disabilities did not participate meaningfully in the VCA process. Therefore, their needs were not mentioned clearly in the assessment results which were used to elaborate the communal CBDRM plan.

Realizing these challenges that we discovered during the meeting, we will – together with the support of Malteser International – continue our advocacy efforts to achieve disability inclusion, for example at our upcoming meetings with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the National Disaster Management Center and the Ministry of Labour – Invalids and Social Affairs. In addition, the monitoring results will enable our trainers to develop the training of trainer syllabus for other DPO members on Disability inclusive CBDRM. Therefore, we hope that one day all INGOs who work in the context of DRR will support disability-inclusion within CBDRM in Vietnam.