Caritas India on October 13, 2017 launched a year-long campaign with a pledge for building ‘safer homes and safer communities” as it observed International Day on Disaster Reduction (IDDR).

The campaign aims to bring awareness to as many as 24 thousand households, especially in India rural and vulnerable areas, describes a video release on this occasion. It will also build 500 resilient hosing models that withstands all major types of disasters like cyclones, earthquakes and floods.

When Tsnami had hit India’s coastal areas in 2004, Caritas network of NGOs had worked to bring life back to over one lakh families (100 thousand) that were left devastated, recalled Fr. Frederick D’Souza, the Executive Director of Caritas India.

Prof. Vinod Menon, former member of NDMA present on the occasion said that Caritas India can create a corpus toward making homes and communities safer in India- where other like-minded development organizations can join in to make the campaign bigger in terms of reach and impact.

India has climbed down on world hunger index from 97 to 100 in the last one year. India loses millions of homes to natural disaster every year, making the country poorer compared to China, he said.

According to NDMA, India has been hit by more than 30 major disaster between 1972 and 2014. Watch the video to learn more on the plans of Caritas India in building safer homes.