Puri: After cyclone Fani battered Odisha and affected over 15.9 million people, the extent of physical damage, especially to critical infrastructure, livelihood, shelter and essential services including, health, education has clearly emerged now in Puri.
There has been a significant threat of infections and epidemics due to the lack of potable water and functional sanitation.So, a AJSA(Anchalik Jana SevaAnusthan) a state level NGO has come forward to address the emerging public health issues under the aegis of Charities Aid foundation (CAF) India and PHILIPS.
A cadre of 320 Agents of change are prepared to work on Community Based Disaster Risk Management and public health in Puri, Odisha.
AJSA organized over 26 Mega health camps in Krushnaprasad and Bramagiri block of Puri district where over 5500 patients were treated by qualified doctors in the health camps. Necessary medical counselling and free medicines were provided to the patients suffering from diarrhoea, jaundice, dehydration, viral fever, eczema, flu and asthma. Children were provided vitamin tonics, medicine for the cold & cough, fever, etc. Skin ointments and antibiotics were provided to the patients suffering from skin disease.
Now a cadre of 320 volunteers has been created in Puri district, who are acting as the “Agents of Change”in their own society and they have taken the responsibility for effective community-based disaster risk management. , different trainings were conducted by AJSA, CAF India and Philips, where village level volunteers took part and were trained on basics of community-based disaster risk reduction & disaster risk management strategies and different public health aspects.
Separate sessions were organised to build the capacity of volunteers on search and rescue, basic first aid etc. AJSA has also sensitized over 700 adolescent girl and women leaders and community level health workers on menstrual hygiene across 26 villages of Krushnaprasad and Bramghagiri.
The main aim behind creation of this cadre was to strengthen the community-based disaster management and disaster resilient WASH programming.
Cyclone Fani, a category 4 storm that made landfall in the state of Odisha on 3rd May, was one of the worst cyclones to hit India in last two decades. Odisha’s preparedness, efficient early warning system, timely action, and well-planned large-scale evacuation strategies helped 1.2 million people move safely into cyclone shelters. The success of the massive evacuation of people to safer places by the state government received worldwide recognition.
But post-disaster, the real time situation and the challenges faced by the affected communities were still to be understood and addressed. It’s been over 2 months, the state is still struggling to get back to normalcy.
According to the first preliminary damage assessment report of the Odisha government, the cyclone has affected at least 15.9 million people spread over 16,659 villages, damaged five lakh houses and 6,700 hospital buildings and perished 34 lakh livestock.