Session 7

1. Session 7 Recovery and Resilience

2. Today’s objectives • To enhance awareness of what community recovery from a pandemic will entail. • To understand how lessons learned during a pandemic can be used to address the underlying causes of food shortages and poverty.

3. Two Stages of Recovery • Re-establish a sense of security • Reduce fear, support grieving, reopen businesses, re-establish joy • Link relief to recovery • Reassess vulnerability - strengthen and sustain relief activities. • Get life and commerce back to normal. • Improve on pre-disaster living conditions - longer-term work that addresses the underlying causes of food shortages and poverty

4. Step 1. Reduce fear and re-establish a sense of security • Immediately after the pandemic has run its course. • Huge psychological impact = great need for psychosocial support • Identify and deal with worries that people have about future outbreaks and the ability to get life back to normal • Grief and recovery counseling

5. Step 1. Reduce fear and re-establish a sense of security • Share accurate information, dispel rumors, provide links to other sources of information and support. • Share information about normal responses to fear, uncertainty, trauma, and disasters. • Candlelight vigils, memorials • Reopen public places • Reintroduce joy to the community

6. Stage 2: Link Relief to Recovery Reassess vulnerability • Ongoing assessments of levels of vulnerability by population and geographic region will be needed to select recovery beneficiaries. • Determine who is still vulnerable and will have trouble getting back on their feet. • Determine the coping strategies that people have used in response to the pandemic

7. Strengthen and sustain relief activities Make sure short-term income and basic necessities are available • Supplemental feeding centers (community kitchens, soup kitchens) for at-risk populations • Vouchers, stamps, or other alternative currency for food purchase in local markets. • Encourage home gardens = improved diet diversity and immediate access to low-cost foods. • Health, hygiene, and nutrition education. • Food for Work - or Cash-for-work programs . • Cash-for-training

8. Strengthen and sustain relief activities • Get life and commerce back to normal • Link short-term relief efforts to longer-term strategies for building resources and skills that will reduce the impact of future disasters

9. Sample Recovery Activities • Strengthen local markets, supply chains, transport of goods • Offer skills training for immediate (self) employment; match job seekers to employment opportunities • Facilitate small loans for business activities in all sectors • Support the formation of cooperatives • Strengthen health service delivery systems; ensure equitable access to vaccines and other medications • Revitalize small-scale agriculture and animal husbandry • Strengthen natural resource management and agricultural extension services • Advocate for national government solutions that help poor people manage risks • Support citizen awareness campaigns and communication and media efforts

10. Work toward future resilience • Identify what can be done with local resources and manpower to get livelihood activities functioning again • Identify areas that need external help. • For example, farming could begin again with local resources but re-establishing market linkages may need external support. • Seek external resources and support if they are needed

11. Thank You