History

Nagapattinam was the most devastated district in the Indian mainland in the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 with the highest number of human lives lost (over 6000), apart from losses to livelihoods and property. The NGO Co-ordination and Resource Centre (NCRC), Nagapattinam. was set up on 1st January 2005 as an emergency response to the Tsunami. A joint initiative of two prominent local NGOs—SIFFS (www.siffs.org) and SNEHA—with assistance from the UNDP, and supported by the District Administration, NCRC has been seen as a successful model that enabled cooperation and coordination in disaster relief, recovery and rehabilitation in the district.

In the three years of its work, NCRC's exceedingly competent interventions resulted in a series of initiatives ranging from multi-stakeholder co-ordination to social audits; specific interventions for target groups such as children, and policy advocacy. Beyond programme implementation, NCRC focused on co-evolving, synergizing, and channelling interventions for communities, NGOs, and the administration in collaboration with higher-level organizations such as the IITs, research institutions and universities, ISRO, the State and Central Government. Many of these resulted in much longer-term development initiatives. At the same time, there were many articulated problems at the grassroots, which are yet to be addressed.

Nagapattinam has the longest coastline in the state of Tamil Nadu and is at the tail end of the Cauvery delta. Criss-crossed by rivers and canals, and beset alternately by droughts and floods, this district is especially vulnerable to rising sea levels attributable to global warming as much of the district lies below mean sea level. Communities involved in agriculture--the mainstay of the populace--and fisheries are perceived to be at the risk of being turned into ecological refugees. Hence, mitigation strategies to combat problems arising from climate change need to be built into the long term development plans of this area.

Since, by design, NCRC was a pro term structure, and was to be dismantled in Dec 2007, the Steering Committee of NCRC, in consultation with other internal and external stakeholders, decided to set up a longer-term legal entity that would take forward the initiatives launched by NCRC. This would also create a permanent mechanism that would design and pilot grassroots interventions which could be handed over to internal stakeholders such as local NGOs, communities, local government or traditional community organizations.

This new organization is BEDROC (Building and Enabling Disaster Reslience of Coastal Communities), a Trust registered in January 2008. While the mandate of NCRC was limited to post- disaster relief and rehabilitation phase, the mandate of BEDROC is long term in nature, and focuses on integrating Disaster Risk Reduction into the mainstream development agenda for building up the resilience of this highly vulnerable coastal district.

BEDROC continues with largely the same Steering Committee, CEO and experienced team of NCRC.