“I have experienced different kinds of disasters since I was sixteen years old, but even now as an old woman, I feel like it’s never too late for me to learn and relearn how we can better prepare,” says a widow from a disaster-prone community in the Municipality of Kapatagan who has survived various disasters for over five decades.

Life in a Vulnerable Community

64-year-old Mardhia had her first bitter taste of tragedy during her teenage years. “A tsunami left us homeless and washed away most of the houses, with some relatives going missing,” she recalls. Mardhia referred to the earthquake that struck the southern Philippines in 1976. The 8.1 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that ravaged the coastline bordering the Moro Gulf in the northern Celebes Sea, leaving a devastating trail with thousands of people dead, missing, or homeless.

Mardhia’s family and more than 1,000 people live in a conflict-stricken village in Kapatagan, Lanao del Sur wha that remains exposed to hazards. Their village faces the Celebes Sea, part of the western Pacific Ocean, putting them highly at risk of storm surges and tsunamis. Moreover, the Lanao del Sur─ a province within the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao─ consists of vulnerable areas prone to recurrent displacement due to armed conflict, clan feuds, and natural disasters much like Mardhia’s community.

To Mardhia, surviving disasters has unfortunately almost become a way of life. She has endured one disaster after another, being displaced due to armed conflict, flooding, and typhoons, and having to rebuild her life from scratch each time. And while she has been surviving disasters and overcoming adversity with new-found strength and optimism, Mardhia and her community are far from being truly resilient.

Taking the Lead in Building Resilience

Building resilience takes a village. This requires multiple layers of support from different actors inside and outside the community. In July 2022, Action Against Hunger launched the project, “Inclusive Disaster Preparedness for Local Resilience in Areas at High Risk of Natural and Human-Induced Hazards in BARMM, Mindanao – Philippines,” better known as iPrepared.

The iPrepared project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID-BHA), aims to improve disaster preparedness and resilience in BARMM by supporting local governments and communities, especially vulnerable and indigenous groups, prepare better for natural and human-induced disasters. iPrepared also focuses on promoting gender equality and empowering women and other community members to take leadership roles in climate and disaster response, ultimately strengthening the effectiveness of local governance in disaster preparedness.

Mardhia takes on the challenge by taking on the leadership role of their community savings group (CSG) and Climate-Resilient Field School (CRFS). As a widow and one of the elder members of the community, she saw this more as a strength than a weakness.

“One of the activities I first attended was Action Against Hunger’s first aid and basic life support training. I felt like I was the oldest participant in the group, but I never felt intimidated by the young ones. The training was like a refresher course for me, and also an affirmation that I did the right thing in my younger years,” Mardhia recalls.

She added, “Even if older people like us don’t have the energy of the young ones, I felt appreciated and valued as they recognized our contributions through our knowledge, experiences, and traditional survival systems.”

During her earlier years, she was part of a paramedical team when their community during the war in Central Mindanao back in 2000. It caused massive displacement, with families fleeing their homes and abandoning their livelihoods.

“I have endured displacement since my younger years. Of course, I never wanted to return to those old memories, but the training I attended helped us better prepare as we still experience armed conflict due to clan feuds in our village,” Mardhia says. She continued: “I don’t want the younger generation to experience what we went through, but it is our reality. We cannot avoid disasters, but we can prepare for them.”

Maintaining Climate-Smart and Diversified Livelihoods

The iPrepared project integrates resilient livelihood strategies focused on risk and climate-informed agriculture and diversified livelihoods for comprehensive resilience building across all levels – household, community, and local government unit (LGU) levels. “As per the assessment, we have learned that most families don’t evacuate from their homes when a calamity is about to happen, so we integrate food security and livelihood resilience and preparedness to ensure vulnerable families do not worry about their farm equipment and livestock when evacuating,” says Mark Dalin-as, Action Against Hunger’s Head of Project for iPrepared.

“Action Against Hunger introduced the value of saving and climate-resilient gardens to our community. What they introduced is beneficial to us. When the recent flooding happened due to a typhoon, our worries lessened even when we got stuck because we had vegetables from our garden to rely on,” Mardhia says. “Even before the typhoon made landfall, we were already prepared, following the training on early warning systems.”

Mardhia’s village becomes isolated easily when the river water rises, making roads impassable. She adds, “how I wish I had learned all these things in my younger years, but this does not stop me from learning and transferring the knowledge to our family members.”

While Mardhia sees her newly acquired knowledge of disaster preparedness strategies as a full circle moment for her, she’s aware that some disasters are beyond anyone’s control and the best she can do is be ready. “I have witnessed disasters and struggled with them for over four decades, but through the various training sessions and experiences I’ve gained over the years, I have better preparedness skills now,” she says.

Putting on Multiple Hats

When she’s not dedicating her time to the iPrepared Demo Farm or with her fellow CSG members, Mardhia commits to running her household. Mardhia hasn’t been a widow for long, but shares that she’s never had children of her own. Because of this, she decided to support three of her nieces and nephews, along with a few grandchildren. She practically raised them as her own and sent them to school. She’s often her siblings’ go-to person for financial and emotional support. After her husband passed away, she volunteered as a focal person for violence against women and children (VAWC) in their village and would report to the barangay a few times a week.

Mardhia’s family has a small strip of land with coconut trees. Their main source of income was from the profits they made from the harvested coconuts. While it is a passive source of income, Mardhia admits that what they used to earn from that was not enough to sustain the whole family. They had to wait a long time before they could harvest, and profits often depended on the supply and demand of copra─the dried coconut meat used for the production of coconut oil and coconut meal. A third of the total income would always go to the hired people who do the harvesting of the coconut fruits. She explains that although there are a few women who do this job, it’s more common for the males in the community to do it, her late husband being one of them. “If I could do it myself, I would so we wouldn’t need to hire others we would be able keep all the profits, but physically I can’t keep up with that work,” she says.

According to Mardhia, the iPrepared project was an eye-opener for her. Before her participation, she did not know how to garden but now takes the lead in farming. She shares, “I learned so much, whether it’s planning and scheduling crops, how to create natural or organic fertilizers that do not contain chemicals, and of course creating by-products like coconut oil that we can sell. Now my family can also eat fresh produce that we planted from scratch.”

“My day is always full. I’m always in the garden or joining training sessions. To be honest, aside from improving our capacity to prepare and respond, the garden has given us a sense of camaraderie as we gather, often sharing stories and family struggles, which makes us feel less isolated. We are also forced to exercise our aging bodies,” she shares with a laugh.

On July 4, Mardhia’s CSG was among the participants of the Community Fair organized by Action Against Hunger’s iPrepared team. During the fair, Mardia took the lead in selling and promoting their products to passersby.

Mardhia emphasizes the importance of learning from lifelong experiences, embracing takeaways from iPrepared, and sustaining community involvement. She notes how these efforts can enrich both individuals and their communities to ultimately be resilient. “All the knowledge and practices gained could have been introduced to us in our younger years, but it’s never too late. The important thing is that now, we are making efforts to prepare ourselves and the community. I’m glad that there are organizations that include older people. In this way, we feel like our capacity and contributions do not go to waste. It is also helping us preserve our culture and identity through our sense of history, passing it on to the younger generation.”

The iPrepared project is a two-year resilience-building initiative implemented by Action Against Hunger with the support of the American people through USAID-BHA. It is launched in seven select municipalities of Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Sur, to impact around 117,000 people with programs focused on Disaster Risk Reduction, Agriculture, and Economic Recovery & Market Systems.