Disasters have become frequent phenomenon in today’s world. Though disasters that occur naturally do not discriminate, the effect of such hazards differs. The ability to face such disasters and the ultimate impact differs from individual to individual and community to community. Their vulnerability may be attributed to many factors like their social (caste, gender, and religion), economic status (rich, poor), physical (roads, drainage, and early warning system), political (state laws) and environmental, etc. Whatever is their status on the above mentioned criteria, their level of preparedness to act during disaster situations and to get involved in the mitigation activities plays a crucial role in the disaster management efforts of the community. Under such situation, it is important to have a resource center which would work at the grassroots level to continuously educate the local people to build their competencies to manage the disastrous situations.

Nagapattinam is the district which has longest coastline in Tamilnadu. The Cauvery delta is located in this district. The district receives rainfall during both North east and south west monsoon. The district is affected by floods caused by the heavy downpour during North east monsoon (October to December) every year and also because of the overflowing Cauvery at times. This leads to flooding of the entire district and damages field crops and the fertility of the soil. Cyclonic storms are one another phenomenon that brings havoc normally once in 3 to years. Inundation of sea water into the crop fields because of the high tides during full moon days is a regular phenomenon in this district. Nagappatinam is one of the district worst affected by the the Tsunami in Dec 2004.

DHAN Foundation had started working in the district immediately after Tsunami. People Institutions were promoted in all the affected villages with an objective of sustainable development. These institutions can be classified largely into three categories based on their development theme viz, microfinance, agriculture and fisheries.

• Creating a resource pool (trained manpower, printed materials, Audio video tools, etc) on disaster risk reduction at the regional resource center.
• Offering different types of capacity building programmes (trainings, mock drills, exposures, workshops, etc)for the community on disaster preparedness and mitigation.
• Carrying out research studies on the impact of various measures taken by the people institutions on disaster risk reduction and mitigation.
• Promoting interdisciplinary approach in disaster preparedness and mitigation through networking with people institutions and other development organisations (education, research, health, district administration, banks, private organizations, etc)

• A Regional Resource Centre in Nagapattinam with trainers and training materials on disaster preparedness.
• Training to all the members of people institutions on preparedness and mitigation measures.
• Impact study of the project.