A-PAD Indonesia operates “Disaster channel“, a website that conveys information and knowledge about disasters, creates contents with various perspectives, and focuses on knowledge dissemination in conjunction with social media.

Starting in 2022, A-PAD Indonesia began storytelling activities to pass on the memories and lessons of disasters. In January 2024, A-PAD held a four-day storytelling content creation training. 21 participants visited a village of the Badui tribe living in Banten Province and learned about field survey methods while hearing from local people about lessons from past disasters and efforts to pass down their stories.

This month, one of the workshop participants published an e-book titled “Local Wisdom in Disaster Mitigation Effort: Badui Indigenous Community”.

The author is Hanna Astranti who works for Climate Reality Project Indonesia, and summarized the lifestyle, way of thinking, and way of dealing with disasters of the Baduy people, an indigenous group living deep in the mountains of Banten Province. 

The Baduy people reject modern civilization and live a unique way of life based on traditional customs and have a strong belief in their reverence for nature, their relationship with humans, and their impact on disasters. The village of Badui has been designated as a no-hunting area to maintain the forest and river ecosystem, and the use of soap is also prohibited to protect the river.

This training was implemented as part of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs NGO Collaboration Grant Aid Project in Indonesia.