Resilience starts at home
Home is where resilience starts. Civil society is how it gets there.
Disaster risk lands hardest at home. But households don’t build resilience alone. Local civil society organisations build the knowledge, skills and agency that let people prepare for and respond to risk.
At GNDR, we know that home is more than a house. It is the household, the street, the school and the community: the whole local system that decides whether people are safe. Our members hold that system together every day.
This International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2026, we’re proud to highlight how our members are the missing link between policy and what happens on the ground. Their stories show what locally led resilience looks like, and what decision-makers need to support it.
Histoires de résilienceTanzania Agricultural Modernization Association (TAMA)
Drought wiped out Mary Joseph’s harvest in Misungwi, Tanzania, so she is learning small-scale irrigation with support from TAMA.
Lire leur histoireMILE Organization
MILE’s Vanguard project teaches families in the Domiz refugee camps to stay safe from explosive ordnance and protect their shared environment.
Lire leur histoirePresentes Corporacion
Presentes Corporación helped 200 flood-affected families in La Pintada and Bolombolo build family disaster risk plans and prepare for emergencies.
Lire leur histoireLire les histoires de résilience de l'IDDRR
To mark the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 202, GNDR members from across the world have shared their stories of resilience. Read them here.
Read their storiesMain photo: Sarosshati Rani – From disaster preparedness to community leadership
Through Women-Led Emergency Response training from ActionAid Bangladesh, Saraswati has become a trusted leader in her community during disasters for early warning dissemination and disaster response. During Cyclone Remal, she mobilised women’s group members, helped elderly people, children and persons with disabilities reach shelters, and supported the distribution of food and drinking water. She later led damage assessments and advocated for financial assistance from various government and non-governmental organisations for affected families while also promoting climate-resilient cultivation among local households.
Photo: ActionAid Bangladesh