ABOUT UDAI II

Following the desk review of the situation in Northern Bihar as also through the information available from the state and district administration, the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi has developed its plan of action. Based on our experiences of working with victims of earth quake in Gujarat , Jammu and Kashmir and Uttrakhand, we have taken the initiative for long-term relief and rehabilitation project- UDAI (University for Development Action and Integrated Learning-II) for the flood affected people in Bihar with two fold objectives:
a) To contribute in relief and rehabilitation of flood affected victims on long term basis.
b) To bring back experiences of learning into the knowledge system of the university.

We had started our intervention from August 28, 2008 and a eight member team comprising of seven students and one non teaching staff led by Dr. Manoj Kumar Jha, Reader, Department of Social Work reached Saharsa on 2nd August and had set up base camp.This team left with relief material worth Rupees twelve lacs (1.2 million) collected from various quarters.

Our Vice Chancellor Prof. Deepak Pental has contributed Rupees twenty lacs (2 million) to the Prime Minister’s Relief  Fund and has also supported the Volunteer based UDAI project of Delhi University. The University has given us all support to make requisite intervention in affected areas. All Colleges/ Departments of Delhi University are joining us in this task.

We intend to work at three levels- immediate relief, long term post rescue relief and long term rehabilitation. For the same our strategy is as under:

Identification of an area (we might focus on a cluster of villages alone) and there too identify the vulnerable locations and populations

  1. Development of base and network with government and non-government agencies (for facilitating relief and rehabilitation packages and measures)
  2. The impromptu relief camps need better trained staff in the initial phase and professional social workers can have a better impact on coordination
  3. Taking a team of twenty students with at least three faculty members which shall liaison and network with the district administration ensuring coordination and cooperation from different government departments as well as NGOs.
  4. We also realise that sanitation will be a major problem for these areas as most of the people are residing on the impromptu found cluttered spaces. We intend to liaison and work with organisation based in Delhi as well as the ones working locally.