Dr. Shahadat Hossain, Administrator of the Chattogram City Corporation, stated that youth volunteers and Met Club members are playing a vital role in delivering early weather and disaster forecasts to the people of Chattogram. He thanked the young volunteers for such initiatives. Noting that he has personally inspected the volunteers’ activities, he praised their efforts in conveying early disaster warnings to the general public.
Emphasizing the need to bring the leadership and participation of young volunteers into an institutional framework to tackle multi-hazard risks such as landslides in Chattogram, Dr. Shahadat Hossain called for engaging trained youth in disseminating early warnings, creating public awareness, and strengthening community-level preparedness to minimize disaster losses.
“To minimize disaster losses, trained young volunteers must be engaged in disseminating early warnings, raising public awareness, and strengthening community-level preparedness,” said Dr. Shahadat Hossain. “It is essential to integrate their activities into the regular disaster management framework of local government.”
He made these remarks while serving as the chief guest at a dialogue titled “Institutionalizing Youth Voice and Leadership in Anticipatory Disaster Management,” held on Thursday (November 5) at Hotel Radisson Blu, Chattogram. Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) organized the event.
In his speech as a special guest, Engineer Belayet Hossain, Chairman of the Chattogram Development Authority (CDA), said, “Building a safe, planned, and eco-friendly Chattogram is not possible for any single institution alone. This requires the concerted efforts of all government and private institutions, city residents, and the youth.”
Other special guests present at the event included Prof. Dr. Md. Al Amin, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education) of the University of Chattogram; Minakshi Barman, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief; Dr. Md. Arifur Rahman, Founder and Chief Executive of YPSA; and Javed Miandad, Manager at Save the Children. The welcome speech was delivered by Nasim Banu, Director (Social Development) at YPSA, and the event was hosted by Muhammad Ataul Hakim, Project Officer at YPSA.
To institutionalize youth participation and leadership in tackling multi-hazard disasters, the discussion emphasized forming youth volunteer teams and platforms in disaster-prone areas, creating a central digital database for volunteer registration, skills, and experience preservation, ensuring formal recognition of volunteer groups, and securing sustainability through local government budget allocations, training certificates, and long-term institutional partnerships.
Minakshi Barman, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, shared that a database of approximately 60,000 to 70,000 urban volunteers has been created in the country, noting that the data needs to be regularly updated and verified. The event was also attended by representatives from various government departments, school students, researchers, research fellows, teachers, and professionals from different strata.
Highlighting the project’s activities and achievements, Javed Miandad of Save the Children reiterated the emphasis on forming youth volunteer platforms, creating a central digital database, ensuring formal recognition, and securing local government budgets and long-term institutional support to institutionalize youth leadership in multi-hazard disaster management.
Umme Humayara Sayka Absar presented the activities and experiences of the volunteers, while Aniket, Muntahina Joya, and Afra Imroz highlighted the activities of the Met Club. Additionally, S.M. Shahriyar Alam, Monitoring Officer at YPSA, presented the research findings and recommendations of the research fellowship.
The dialogue placed strong emphasis on establishing an integrated digital volunteer database for Chattogram city. This database would store volunteers’ locations, contact information, and details of their training and skills to enable quick identification and deployment during disasters. Furthermore, initiatives by the Met Club to raise awareness among students about weather, climate change, and disasters while fostering leadership development were highlighted.
During the event, certificates and ID cards were distributed among 104 trained young volunteers from Chattogram and Banshkhali upazila.
Notably, the project titled “Child-Centred Anticipatory Action for Better Preparedness of Communities and Local Institutions in Northern and Coastal Areas of Bangladesh” is being implemented with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO), in cooperation with Save the Children, executed by YPSA, and supported technically by RIMES. Under this project, various activities are being conducted in the Chattogram City Corporation and Banshkhali upazila to enhance anticipatory disaster preparedness, capacity building, and youth leadership development within communities and local institutions.
