Disaster Mitigation as Career Option
Ranjan K Baruah *
Mud Volcano at Tusom, 121 Kms from Ukhrul District HQs near Indo-Myanmar border in October 2013 :: Pix - Popcha Yambem
The term disaster, whether natural or man made is dangerous and harmful. We can't avoid natural disasters as it is caused by the nature. Is there anything that can be done during disaster or post disaster or anything as disaster preparedness?
One of the careers which is related to all these is none other than disaster management. Disaster management has become one of the popular terms with the development of departments and many non governmental organisations or popularly known as NGOs.
The word disaster originated from the French word 'desastre', which is a combination of words 'des' (bad) and 'aster' (star) and therefore disaster indicates bad star. We are less prepared before disasters for which the casualties is more but with proper planning the destruction can be minimised and lives of people or other living being can be saved.
Disasters can be natural like floods, earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, etc where as man made disaster like some sort of fire, accidents, accidents or blasts, etc. There can be also some violent man made disasters like bomb blast or attack on other countries or terrorist activities, etc. Now the question is that what can be done.
Though man made disasters may be controlled but we can't go against natural disaster so the best part would be either we remain prepare for it or take necessary measures which causes minimum affect to lives and properties. In any disaster it is important to manage the things and as a result disaster management has become important for us.
It can be emergency relief or planning for long term. Its major objective is to reduce the shocking effects of a disaster on the affected community and to help them return to normal life within a short period.
Disaster management is a multi disciplinary area covering a wide range of issues like monitoring, evaluation, search and rescue, relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation operations.
There are courses related to disaster management that includes short term and long term courses. The Government of India has included disaster management as a subject to study for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) students. NGOs and International organizations such as World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Organisations (UNO), Red Cross, offer various opportunities for professionally trained disaster management professionals.
Some of the courses in this field include M.A in Disaster Management, Certificate Course in Disaster Management, Diploma in Disaster Management, Post Graduate Certificate Course in Disaster Management, etc. There are institutes that offer correspondences courses which are mostly beneficial for the professional working with NGOs or Government Agencies. It is always advisable to do full time courses who are seriously interested to get engaged in disaster management area.
There are many scopes for professional who are trained on this field as educational institutions are also taking it as priority to prepare for disasters. Young people from north eastern region are working around the world in the field of disaster management and they are earning and contributing a lot to the society.
One of the personnel qualities required is that aspirants must be hard working and ready to face challenge as one need to work in conditions which are challenging and in many times risky. It's a profession through which one can help individuals or communities in the time of disaster and one would be certainly happy when s/he can help others.
* Ranjan K Baruah wrote this article for The Sangai Express
This article was posted on September 02, 2014.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.