Thapapur VDC along with Narayanpur, Dhansinghpur, Lalbojhi and Bhajani, a highly vulnerable to flood, located in southern part of Kailali district. Chhachharuwa cluster under Thapapur-8 is one of the severely flood disaster prone areas where nearly 100% population of the area belongs to Tharu (indigenous) communities. Their primary source of income is agriculture laborers for their livelihoods since long. They have very less access to the public services and resources, disadvantaged compared to others communities. Most of the youths migrated to India every year for seasonal laborer works. During monsoon, the community people have to face many problems like loss of properties and life, crop damage and land erosion due to floods disasters. Since floods come each year, it becomes common phenomenon for them. Around 150 households are every year affected by Pathariya river passing via the villages. The flood converted most of the arable land into sandy and unproductive land and washed away. That resulted food insufficiency for them and further forced them to migrate outsides as seasonal laborers.
Since January 2012, The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Nepal in partnership with Digo Bikash Samaj (a local implementing partner of LWF Nepal) started to work in this community under Nepal Development Program. It has been working for their socio-economic empowerment, disaster risk reduction, resilient livelihood, income generation and improving governance system. In the year 2014, as learning, LWF Nepal started to “Integrate DRR & CCA into livelihoods” approach. The community has developed action plans after Participatory Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (PCVA) that identified potential disaster risks, their capacities and gaps to withstand against worst situations. In the same time, community based disaster risk management committee (CBDRMC) was formed and equipped to make well functional. They established community grain bank, emergency fund and early warning system (EWS) to utilize during monsoon period as coping strategy. Besides that, project also supported group members to develop entrepreneurs in diverse areas like mason, pig & goat raising and vegetable farming to get them self-employed.
Based on their DRM plan, the community members encouraged to implement adaptation and mitigation activities. They have constructed 300 meter long low cost bio-engineering schemes (soil dam) along the river bank. The project contributed NPR 89060 (Euro 810) and supported Siren machine for EWS, gauge and other materials for gauge reader; raincoat, torch light shoes and incentive for communication. Likely, CBDRMC members and task forces were trained in disaster risk reduction, search and rescue, first aid, early warning, search and rescue. Furthermore, the members also planted bamboo saplings and local grass called Narkat (a multipurpose grasses) along the river bank. In addition to that, they tapped resource from VDC for culvert construction and gravelling on the village road.
Though community also faced floods during last monsoon of 2015, the level of damage was very less in comparison to previous years. No any human causalities and none of them loosed their farm land including no displacement from their residences. The early warning system (EWS) helped all 150 households to inform the possible risk on time to reach the safe place for shelter. Now, they are coordinating with concerned stakeholders to expand their river bank embankment and for other DRR safety net measures. The group members are carrying out regular discussions on the issues in their groups. There is increased trend on preparedness and mitigation to withstand against potential disaster risk. They are coordinating with gauge reader located at up/downstream along with well trained taskforces teams. Similarly, community people are planning to construct plinth raised houses and shelter to enhance their coping capacities.