Scouts in action in earthquake
April the 25th 2015 on Saturday, Nepal was shaken by a devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 Richterscale. It is the second massive quake in history of Nepal since it happened some 82 years ago with magnitude of 8.1 Richterscale. It affected mostly in the mid & hill part of the country. With death toll up from 8000, injured more than 21,000 and the valuation of damaged properties is $10 Billion which accounts half of the Nominal GDP of the country. Millions of houses have been damaged and countless number of animals dead, millions of Tons of food grains buried in the ruins. Life of the people after earthquake remained always in fear with recurring aftershocks even after a year .
Nepal Scouts with more than 57,000 members is did every possible in the situation of challenge to rebuild the country and help it rise again. Nepal Scouts took this unfortunate situation as an opportunity to serve the people and devoted all its attention towards relief and rescue of the people and later in rebuilding of the houses and schools.
The scouts were quick in action right after the earthquake with inspiration from the phrase "Be prepared" collaborating with Nepal Army to rescue four people alive from a collapsed wall at Narayanhiti Palace Museum near National Headquarters of Nepal Scouts.
Nepal Scouts & the Scouts Brotherhood
More than 5,000 Scouts were mobilized during a period of one year in the post disaster situation to rescue, relief & rebuild who worked uncountable number of hours.
Nepal Scouts did rescue & relief works with its own manpower and funding as well as with funding and volunteers from other NSOs. Other different national/international organizations also had joined hands with Nepal Scouts to serve the people best way possible. Bharat Scouts & Guides from India sent its Rover/Ranger troops and other relief materials, Thailand Scouts has also sent its representatives with great amount of relief materials, Bangladesh Scouts also had its volunteers with relief materials, volunteer form Vietnam Scouts and representatives from Indonesia Scouts as well.
Nepal Scouts volunteers did commendable jobs after being mobilized in the areas of Dharahara monumental site, historical Basantapur, Bhaktapur & Patan Palace Square. Likewise, they did services aplenty in the holy site of Lord Pashupanath Aryaghat where dead bodies are cremated according to Hindu rituals. They managed the area full of dead bodies in queue after the quake to cremate and looked after the sanitation of the area.
They also involved themselves in other laudable deeds by protecting the food grain and other valuables in the damaged houses.
This inspiring job by volunteers of Nepal Scouts was recognized by the Government of Nepal in the Parliament.
Involvement with UN Agencies :
Nepal Scouts collaborated with UN-OCHA & other 12 agencies to provide trainings to the Scouts for Disaster Risk Management, under "Inter-Agency Common Feedback Project". 75 Scouts from 14 severly affected Districts were involved in trainings "Communicating with Community".
The training was aimed at getting feedbacks from the community by collecting data right from the areas that have been affected and to get the scouts ready for post disaster situations in the future. The training was held at Kakani International Scouts Center, KISC (formerly Kakani Int'l Training Center, KITC) from 15th-19th June 2015.
Likewise, Nepal Scouts collaborated with UNICEF to run a part of "Road to Recovery Project" which was aimed at providing immediate relief money to the children of backward community and elder people of earthquake hit districts. Nepal Scouts volunteers provided information and awareness regarding the cash transfer by UNICEF & other services by the government.
Disaster Management Trainings
A special project which is also recognized by the Government of Nepal concluded on 28th April 2016. MoP Disaster Management Training were held in different 4 parts of Nepal to produce Disaster Management Master Trainer Scouts in all 240 Electoral Constituencies of Nepal.