Training on Community-based Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Risk Analysis in Pati District was done on 13th - 15th April 2009, in Salatiga. There were 27 participants attended this training represented 8 villages partner of SHEEP Indonesia Foundation, which are the village of: Karangrowo, Tondomulyo, Sugiharjo, Bumirejo, Kedungpancing, Kasiyan, Babalan and Doropayung.
In the first day, participants were asked to identify various threat of disaster which often faced by the people and drew its map. Group discussion of the participants identified that flood and drought are the most disaster happened and faced by those 8 villages. Flood disaster is more priority compared with drought as it caused more lost, while people could more survive during drought.
Flood at firts only happen once in ten years or five years. But since 2004, flood happens annually. Althoug the character of flood is not flash flood, but fluctuative flood, which raise and down slowly, people were suffering huge lost, as the flood could stay for 2 weeks through 5 months. Flood was caused by overflow of Juwana River which no longer able to keep the water from two mountain hills, Kendeng and Muria. Silting up and constriction of Juwana River due to less maitenance of its watershed, made the flood become worse. However, people have been able to noticed some natural signs of coming flood, such as: cloudy sky or heavy rain above the area of Kendeng and Muria mountains, the appearance of white crabs and other insect which commonly live inside the ground, such as: flying white ant, ant, and termite. The flood usually come 12 hours after the thick cloud or heavy rain from the 2 mountains, or after about 20 days after the appearance of the insects.
In the second day, people were discussing and identifying capacity and vulnerability in order to reduce disaster risk. According to the participants, the vulnerable group were elderly, cildren and pregnant women, since they need help from other to escape from the flood and more easily to get contaminated by various common disease after the flood. Other vulnerable group were peasant, aqua cuture peasant, traditional fishermen, migrant labour, and people who are living in flooded prone area. Peasant and aqua culture peasant always loose their crop as their land and spond were flooded. They could not get their harvest after allocated huge cost of production process. Traditional fishermen could not go fishing when flood comes as wafe is usually high during the flood. No fishing means they could not meet their daily need. Migrant labour had to pay more to get boat access to transport them to their work places. Meanwhile, people who are living in flooded prone should go flea and evacuate their property. The lost or damage of house in flooded prone are usually more worse as its possibility of being flooded was high.
In terms of infrastructure, village road, praying hall & mosques, schools, and people's settlement were considered as vulnerable prone as they wouldn't be able to be used during the flood. Conflict within survivor due to unfair/improper assistance distribution was also considered as vulnerable aspect. Problematic assistance usually caused by: its less availability compared with the survivor number, improper distribution, diferent data which come from people and from the government, improper assistance and diferent perpsective on lost identification which done by giver (like government, NGO) and the survivors. For instance: Government only provide assistance for those whose flooded house, infact people whose unflooded house faced other lost from their flooded crops. Those kind of survivors deserve to get assistance, too as they had spent a lot of resources for their crops.
In terms of transportation capacity, most of people have had their own boat or those who do not have one can get access to rent boat owned by CBOs. In tems of disaster preparedness, some villages have had disaster response team and public facility, which can be used as evacuation center. Related with social culture, people still keep their tradition of "mutual work" which is very useful for people to get together and be organized. In terms of knowledge, most people noticed the sign of the coming threat and people have been able to adapt with disaster and its related consequences. People's adaptation eforts could be seen on various activities, such as: elevating house foundation which based on the lastest high of water, making ranggon (elevating table, bed, elevating kitchen area), using banana tree and drum to make raft and floating cage. In terms of agriculture, most people have applied pollybag for chilli, and move forward its planting schedule and irigating their land with pump system. Pump irigation system is very helpful for peasants to move forward their planting schedule, so the peasant could get their harvest before the flood comes. However, pump irigation system remained expensive for its maintenance, while water availability was less during dry season. Meanwhile, for aqua culture, people installed net to avoid fish lost when the flood comes.
In the third day, people tried to formulate their analysis on disaster risk in their own villages by exploring their map of threat, capacity and vulnerability, which had been discussed before. The result of discussion then taken as the basis of their action plan. Action plan priority of people were: spreading out same perception in community level about DRR and determining prior activities in order to reduce disaster risk, which could be applied colectively, which was moving forward planting schedule. People agreed to establish network within villages along Juwana watershed and enggaging local government to speak out people's problem to higher government level or other related stakeholder to get better solution.