Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe (DKH), one of the biggest welfare institutions in Germany, is funding the Citizens’ Disaster Response Center’s Php 25.7 million project on disaster preparedness and mitigation in typhoon-prone Philippine regions.

The project has been jointly supported by DKH and the German Federal Foreign Office during its first two years of implementation. Now, on its third year, DKH pledged to continue to support the project for three more years.

Lourdes Louella Escandor, CDRC’s Executive Director said, from the original 72 pilot communities during the Phase 1 and 2 of the project, 56 more communities will be added in the Phase 3, which will run until 2013.

“So much has been achieved that there arose a need to replicate the project in other regions which has the same vulnerability to typhoons and floods as the 72 pilot communities,” Escandor said.

The project will serve small farmers, fisherfolks and indigenous people in 128 typhoon-prone communities in 26 provinces across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Escandor said the project seeks to contribute in the process of building better-prepared and disaster-resilient communities.