Bandung Disaster Study Group

Actually this is about our 2 nd day activity and it was the very first time for us to make connection with Yogyakarta’s institution. Both BDSG and WASEND were straining relationship to Pusat Studi Bencana Alam (PSBA - Natural Disaster Study Center) of Gadjah Mada University. We were so excited! First Bapak Jati from PSBA UGM introduced their institution, followed by Adhitya from BDSG and Koichi Saito from WASEND. Then PSBA played a documentary film about their establishment and roles. Their core activity is to spread or publicize science so it’s acceptable and applicable to the community for disaster management in Yogyakarta and surrounding. At the next session Bapak Made introduced PSBA’s role in detail. They have so many activities to handle. Surprisingly those activities are not only related to natural disasters but also disasters caused by human behavior! They think that the deviation of human behavior could lead people to the most destructive disaster ever, which is nat...

This is my first article for BDSG and I will talk about my recent homestay activity with BDSG members and our Japanese friends from WASEND in Jogjakarta last month. I was very excited because that was the first time I went to Jogjakarta. I did the homestay activity with our Japanese friends for 6 days. In that homestay activity, we done a lot of things, one of our missions in homestay activity was doing the DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) action. The action was taken in our host family’s house and involving all the members of host family. In our nervously start (because that was our first DRR action!), we discussed about the emergency bag. After they got the knowledge about emergency bag, we moved forward to analyze the evacuation route that their house has. This action could help them if disaster happens because they already know how to escape to a safer place. Another important thing besides knowing about evacuation route is to know how dangerous your house is, so  we an...