Post-earthquake collaborative initiatives by a Nepali community organisation in Australia: A case study

Bhishna Bajracharya, Edilyn Bajracharya

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterResearchpeer-review

Abstract

The two massive earthquakes that struck Nepal in 2015 resulted in a huge loss of lives and damage to buildings, infrastructure, and cultural heritage. As an immediate response to this natural disaster, the Nepalese Association of Queensland (NAQ), a Nepalese community organization based in Brisbane, started two key post-earthquake initiatives. The first initiative was to raise funds for earthquake relief by organizing various events/activities. The second initiative was to organize a multi-disciplinary collaborative workshop in Brisbane to discuss the potential role of the Nepali community in Queensland in identifying the issues and strategies to deal with the post-earthquake reconstruction in Nepal.
The objective of this paper is to critically analyze NAQ’s two initiatives of fundraising and organization of a multidisciplinary workshop after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal. The paper discusses how the funds were raised and distributed by NAQ and draws important lessons from that experience. Secondly, it discusses how the Nepalese community in Queensland convened to examine the earthquake event from multi-disciplinary perspectives, identify linkages between physical and social aspects of the disaster, and offer recommendations to inform the impending vast reconstruction work. It describes and analyses the outcomes of the workshop in terms of sharing of knowledge and identification of opportunities for collaboration with different government and non-governmental organizations for post-earthquake reconstruction. The paper brings out the key challenges for an overseas-based community organisation to contribute to disaster management in Nepal and draws lessons from its experiences.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRevisiting the Nepal earthquakes 2015: Resilience, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction
EditorsNeel Kamal Chapagain, Subik Kumar Shrestha, Krishna Datta Bhatta, Sangeeta Singh
Place of PublicationKathmandu
PublisherTribhuvan University Press
Chapter4
Pages61-80
Number of pages20
ISBN (Print)978-9937-0-5302-0
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2019

Publication series

NameReflections on the Built Environment and Associated Practices
VolumeIII

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