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print versionDear All,
Today, it is eleven weeks since the terror strikes in Mumbai on November 26th 2008.
The protests on the streets seen in the early days have now transformed themselves into several citizen driven initiatives demanding change.
A common refrain has been the necessity to keep the ordinary citizen central to the response process. How can the average Mumbaikar be better prepared, respond better and protect herself or himself better ?
What role will the hundreds of citizens who come to the rescue of Mumbaikars trapped in floods year after year, during road traffic accidents day after day, and during times of mass casualty events spontaneously and consistently, play in disaster planning and response?
It is to provide Mumbaikars a platform to partake in their city’s disaster management that mumbaiVOICES is launched again. Initiated in August 2006, after the serial train blasts in Mumbai, www.mumbaiVOICES.com recorded 150 testimonies from survivors, bystanders, responders, relatives of the deceased and hospital staff, in its pilot phase. Based on lessons learnt from those testimonies, a series of independent initiatives were undertaken over the next two years, culminating in the execution of the Mumbai Emergency Management Exercise (www.mumbaiEMEX.org), the city’s first inter-agency disaster drill focused on medical response, conducted only weeks before the attacks of November 26th 2008.
Three months after the tragic events of November, as Mumbai continues to recuperate, mumbaiVOICES is launched again — this time available to a wider audience: Mumbaikars without access to the internet can call our multi-lingual call center (022 3957 1260) from 9am to 5pm Monday - Saturday. The mumbaiVOICES campaign will be launched through print media in English, Marathi, Hindi, and through radio and television channels starting February 11th.
MumbaiVOICES remains a voluntary, public-private partnership, and a collaboration between professionals across institutions in India and abroad.
Please disseminate this email widely.
Please visit www.mumbaiVOICES.com
See campaign at:
http://tinyurl.com/cal4y4
Let your voice be heard!
Sincerely,
mumbaiVOICES Project Team
- Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai Disaster Management Cell and CCRS
- University of Mumbai’s Times Center of Disaster Management
- Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies
- Times Foundation, Citizens for Justice and Peace
- Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Feel free to contact us with questions: mumbaiVOICES26.11(AT)gmail.com
