The Training and Learning Circle (TLC) is being conceptualized to re-examine, strengthen, and facilitate the crucial interface between training and education for Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR). It will do so as an ongoing knowledge exchange cycle between training institutions and universities and community based organizations accross Asia and beyond.

There is an ongoing demand for evidence based, context specific, up-to-date, and applied Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction tools and resources for mainstreaming and institutionalizing Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) through training and education in Asia. However the lack of interface between training and educaton often leads to uneven quality of training inputs and scarcity of relevant educational resources. As a result, the multi-faceted demand for tools and resources remains partially unmet.

Although practitioners and trainers from small and medium sized community organizations are the original owners of the CBDRR approachers in Asia, their innovations in training and education too often strave and dismantle without additional learning inputs and appropriate incentives for being innovative. This is true for academics and institutions that capture, develop, and disseminate knowledge on CBDRR. The concept of a Training and Learning Circle (TLC) is organized to address the persistent challenge.

Purpose

To enhance learning thorough South-South knowledge and solution exchanges by focussing on addressing systemic gaps and topics in training and education that would benefit from a sector-wide approach as opposed to a sinle agency approach.

Key Objectives

• Review content, method and impact of key training initiatives by TLC partners and other leading training institutions to identidy gaps and address emerging need for developing new training materials for wider use and practice.
• Organize and create a circle of selected training practitioners to develop and host a web-based inventory of trainers, training institutions and training related tools and resources such as training manuals, needs assessments, and impact studies.
• Promote CBDRR among selected universitiesm learning centers and training institutes for adoptionas one of the regular courses the are offering.
• Facilitate interactive learning mechanisms and exhanges / sharing of expriences, practices, researchs, conceptsm methodologies and tools in training and education for application of community-centered disaster risk reduction.

Key Activities

• Conduct a review / impact study of CBDRR trainings and develop learning materials to address gaps
• Encircle a pool of key Trainers in Asia and link them with a web-based multi-hazard, multi-level, and multi-method training resource inventory for Asia.
• Set-up a Working Group of selected universities, conduct a scoping study, and develop guidelines for universities to institutionalize CBDRR.
• Organize Trainers’ Pool Forum in the Philippines and Sri Lanka and organize a regional workshop for universities.

Key Outcomes

• Results of the review / impact study of CBDRM training are made available to all the relevant stakeholders and two publications disseminated.
• Pool of trainers organized to continue discourses and sharing of tools and techniques in facilitation and to contribute to the development of training materials in a collaborative way.
• Web-based training resource inventory of Asia is launched and is made available to trainers and learners to use.
• Working group of universities in Asia is formed and a guidelines for institutionalizing CBDRM in universities is produced.
• Forums and workshops organized for promotion and application of CBDRR and for interactive South-South learning exchange among institutions, centers and individual trainers.

Promoters of TLC

• Provention Consotium Secretariat
• Asian Disaster Preparedness Center
• The Special Unit for South-South Cooperation in UNDP Regional Center in Bangkok, Thailand (lead)
• Center for Disaster Preparedness in the Philippines
• All India Disaster Mitigation Institute

Interested individuals, trainers and training institutions / civil society organizations with training capacities are invited to share their experience and expertise in Asia through the TLC. Academic institutions and universities from across Asia are invited to join efforts with the TLC. Also encouraged to join are authorities with interest in promoting learning about risk management. Investors in such action learning projects including donor communities are welcome.The project will also involve and seek advice of existing disaster riks reduction networks such as Duryog Nivaran, Asian Disaster Reduction Center and the Asdian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN).

Getting Involved

There are a number of ways to get involved with the TLC:

• If you are a trainer / training institution or a university working in Asia kindly send an expression of interest to the Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) in the Philippines; or All India Disaster Mitigation Institute.

In order to avail full membership / place in the Asia-wide inventory of trainers and training tools / methodology, you may:

• Write a 3,000-word paper on innovations on CBDRR training based on your training and its impact, or
• Submit electronic copies of training materials and methods used to train people in CBDRR.

For more information, please contact cdp@info.com.ph
Or view website: www.traininglearningcircle.net

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