Providing training services is CDP’s core activity with a menu of courses which are customized to particular needs of training partners and target participants – disaster management orientation, disaster preparedness training, training management, managing disaster risk, emergency response management, managing complex emergencies, managing disaster response centers, and case study (story) writing. Usual outputs of the disaster management/preparedness training is a general community risk assessment, initial disaster management action plan, and the formation of a grassroots disaster management organization/volunteers group to ensure that the CBDRM activities continue after the training.

Through the “Preparedness Support Program” (PSP), CDP was able to assist in the capability building of the Citizens’ Disaster Response Network – the Citizens’ Disaster Response Center and its partner Regional Centers all over the Philippines from 1997 to 2001. Assistance to vulnerable communities, NGOs and local government units (LGUs) were made possible in combination with other projects. Eight barangays (villages) in Lake Sebu, Southern Mindanao were assisted in the “Ideally Prepared Communities Project” in partnership with the Lake Sebu Ancestral Domain Community Association. In Northern to Southern Luzon, 292 participants from communities and service providers were covered in 18 training workshops through the “Improvement of Community Based Disaster Management in Selected Regions in the Philippines Project”.

Assistance in capability building in CBDRM of LGUs together with NGOs and community leaders in Sigma, Capiz in Panay Island, the whole province of Camiguin, Marawi and Lanao del Norte and Sur, North Cotabato, General Santos and Western Mindano were undertaken through contracts with the Philippine Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in the Rural Areas/ Sigmahanon Development Foundation Inc., the Local Government Support Program, the Netherland Development Organization (SNV) with Kalimudan, and the Strengthening the Foundation for Lasting Peace and Development of the GOP/UN-Multidonor Programme for Peace Phase 3 for Special Zone of Peace & Development.

Aside from disaster preparedness training with the partners of Area for Development Program of World Vision Development Foundation Inc. all over the Philippines, World Vision has also engaged CDP to put in place CBDRM in the Champasak District in Laos and at least 120 communities in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in the Pacific Islands.

Since 1999, CDP has been actively involved in the development of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center’s (ADPC) CBDRM Course module and instructional materials. Partnership with ADPC has also opened opportunities for CDP to facilitate CBDRM workshops in communities in Bangladesh and Laos, and present Philippine as well as other relevant CBDRM experiences and practices in international seminar and fora. (See Summary of CDP’s Training Projects and Consultancies)

To ensure that its training content and methodologies are relevant and appropriate, CDP sustains partnership with community organizations such as Buklod Tao, a people’s organization in San Mateo, Rizal and the communities of its training partners.