Bangladesh is prone to natural disasters and it suffers periodically from floods, cyclones, tidal surges, earthquakes, droughts, and outbreaks of disease.

With this project, IR helps communities at risk of natural disasters reduce their vulnerability and build their capacity to recover quickly.

The project operates on several levels from people in villages right up to civil servants and government officials.

Islamic Relief Bangladesh, building on its extensive and varied experience of disaster relief, particularly floods and cyclones over the last 15 years, wishes to develop and professionalize its institutional disaster preparedness and response capacity both at the IR Country Office and the community level, through the establishment of Emergency & Disaster Preparedness (EDP) Department. The project will cover disaster prone areas around the country.

Project Objectives

• Building the capacity of the disaster affected communities in order to mitigate their sufferings during and after the natural calamities / disasters
• Creating community and youth volunteers in the disaster prone communities / institutions
• Improving advocacy and networking with other organizations
• Creating a disaster emergency relief Fund

Project Activities

• Introduce the Project activities at community level
• Form Islamic Relief – Relief and rehabilitation committee (IR-RRC )  
• Form Community and youth volunteers committee
• Network / Advocacy
• Select and organize training/refresher for ERU / EHRT
• Training/Orientation/refresher for IR-RRC, UDMC, Community volunteer on DP, WATSAN, health hygiene, environmental issues etc.
• Organize training/refresher on first aid

"Islamic Relief is striving for a fairer world. Our mission is to help the poor and needy to live sustainable, self-reliant lives within safe and caring communities. Our work is guided and shaped by the core values of accountability, humanitarianism, neutrality and impartiality, inclusiveness, integrity and co-operation, all of which are also integral to the Islamic faith."
Dr Hany El Banna - Founder of Islamic Relief

Islamic Relief was established in 1984 and our unique approach is the result of these many years of hands-on experience.

1. Where possible we adopt a community partnership-based approach; encouraging community involvement, understanding and ownership of projects.
2. We run the majority of our field projects ourselves, giving us direct insight into the problems faced and how best to solve them.
3. We aim to empower those we help in order to achieve sustainable results.
4. Though our emergency response teams are quick to respond to emergencies around the world, we continue to support communities long after the initial media interest has died down.
5. We recruit staff locally to benefit from their local knowledge. This ensures that we are culturally sensitive and allows us to reach communities and areas other organisations cannot.
6. Where necessary we coordinate our work with other reputable aid agencies, local organisations and governments.

Millennium Development Goals

Islamic Relief is committed to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which have been agreed by the world’s leading development institutions in an effort to meet the needs of the world’s poorest by the year 2015. 

The goals:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

For more information about the MDGs, please visit: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/