Inclusive Resilience - Disabled people and resilience: A different value for resilience - Celebration of the International Day of People with Disabilities (IDPD 2014)
As part of its government actions on environmental sustainability and territorial safety, the Province of Potenza has recently joined the UNISDR "Making Cities Resilient" Campaign with the establishment of a Network, the "Province of Potenza - Municipalities" Network for Resilience, with the purpose of implementing actions aimed at disseminating the Resilience of communities, namely at improving the communities’ ability to withstand and respond effectively to the risks of natural disasters in terms of prevention.
The initiative has received broad international recognition by the United Nations that acknowledged the strategic value of the objectives and actions undertaken, identifying the Province-Municipalities Network for Resilience as a worldwide best-practice.
The consolidation of a cooperation work with the Municipalities and the Communities through a cognitive, methodological and procedural accompanying process for pursuing the territorial safety objectives within a specific network is our main goal. This also serves to fill one of the problems encountered in the assessment phase: the widespread lack, by local authorities, of communities’ active involvement in decision-making, planning and implementation processes on disasters risk reduction and territorial policies.
Among the communities, special attention is paid to particular social categories, including women, elderly, young and disabled. In fact, these social groups should not be considered only "vulnerable", but also strong interest groups, both in terms of numbers and skills; social categories that the whole community and institutions can and should benefit from for the development of safe and sustainable land policies.
Therefore, the Province has launched a thematic institutional path with the dual aim of raising awareness and enhancing the capacity of individuals and communities in reducing disaster risks through the spread of knowledge and the increase of awareness about the importance of risk prevention and mitigation, and of engaging them in decision-making and programming processes regarding territorial policies at the local level.
The consultations are aimed at setting up Open-Ended and Open-Participative Discussion Tables focusing on the Resilience of Communities according to the attached program. The discussions will be oriented to the consideration of the specific needs of “protection” of each social category with respect to territorial safety and disaster risk reduction, and of the potential that the category can express and the role it can play to improve the land use and government actions – both institutional and not.