The recent ravaging floods of Bihar brought distress to a large population of the state. As per the Disaster Management report, Bihar’s topography is marked by a number of perennial and non-perennial rivers of which, those originating from Nepal are known to carry high sediment loads that are then deposited on the plains of Bihar. A majority of the rainfall in this region is concentrated in the three months of monsoon during which the flow of rivers increases up to 50 times causing floods in Bihar. 68800 sq km out of a total area of 94160 sq km, an estimated 73% percent of the total land area in Bihar is vulnerable to flood. Annual flooding in Bihar accounts for about 30-40% of the flood damages in India; 22.1% of the total flood affected the population in India is reported to be located within the state of Bihar. 28 districts of Bihar fall under most flood-prone districts.

The multi-disaster prone state of Bihar requires a multi-disciplinary approach to deal with these disasters requiring the participation of various stakeholders. The first respondents of any natural disaster are the local community of the affected area. The true spirit of volunteerism is seen during such testing times when the community reaches out to help each other. Caritas Samaritans from Bihar took up a similar action during the recent flood in Bihar. Ms. Soni and Mr. Ajay were trained by Caritas India on Humanitarian response as part of their volunteer orientation and training programme. Through their learnings from the training, they were quick to respond to the needs of the community. Due to heavy water logging, it was difficult for the villagers of Kathihar district to stay indoors. Caritas Samaritans took the initiative of gathering villagers of the nearby area into a shelter home to cater to their needs. Soon they realised that fund support is required to sustain the people living in the shelter homes. They used the crowdfunding approach to gather fund support. They began to reach out to the people residing around Katihar district. Soon their efforts and determination to help started bearing fruits. They managed to raise sufficient monetary support, which in turn was used to cater to the medical needs of the affected people. Caritas Samaritans also managed to provide the affected people with food support.

Caritas India embarked on this journey of volunteering in 2018 by calling out to the citizens of our country to join hands as volunteers. Through the recent volunteer training and orientation programmes more than 100 volunteers were trained from different parts of India. The training was designed to instill the spirit of volunteering and motivate them to initiate activities around their living areas for the good of our society. Volunteers in Caritas are moved by faith and are agents who act with competence and spirituality, based on their knowledge and skills acquired. Volunteers are being engaged in different activities such as community interaction, assessment, distribution, etc. Nationally volunteers are also being engaged in reaching out to the individual and institutional donors of Caritas India to encourage contributions towards the flood-affected families. We at Caritas India truly believe that volunteers are people and teams committed to engage in favour of people in situations of vulnerability and social exclusion; they have compassion, at the root of their actions undertaken and is continuously engaged in developing these agents of change in every part of our nation.