Since 2008, the issues worked on by ASB have been growing, including social and economic development. The operational mandate of ASB contained in the latest memorandum of understanding between ASB and the Ministry of Home Affairs (2016-2019) includes ASB’s contribution towards the development of community resilience through economic and social development as well as humanitarian aid.
Promoting leadership of persons with disabilities is a key approach within ASB’s disaster risk reduction and socio-economic development initiatives. Our work aims to contribute to building community resilience through the integration of risk management, social inclusion, and socio-economic development. Diverse and dynamic socio-economic contexts in the villages we worked with have introduced several learnings collected from the efforts, interventions, and approaches made during the partnership program.
Community empowerment has been a central pillar of our work. We seek to enhance the ability of the marginalised people to be able to participate and actively influence the management and decision making process of the community institutions to improve their lives.
Therefore, the community empowerment that we aim to achieve is about the enhancement of collective and individual welfare in terms of:
- Economic improvement, particularly livelihood and food sufficiency
- Social welfare improvement (education, health, and water, sanitation and hygiene)
- Freedom from any form of oppression, stigma, and marginalisation
- Guaranteed protection, particularly from hazard, threat, and fear.
