Community Voices: Hearing live from those living on the frontline of risk (GNDR)

Bios of session facilitators:

Session Moderator: Becky Murphy, Policy Lead, Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR)

Becky is GNDR’s Policy Lead, heading up Policy and Advocacy, Membership Engagement and External Communications for GNDR. Becky has spent over 10 years working as a resilience and disaster risk reduction technical adviser for humanitarian teams including at ActionAid, Christian Aid and CAFOD. Here, Becky has spent significant time working in humanitarian contexts across Africa, Asia, Central America, and the Middle East with a specific focus on community resilience building in protracted crises contexts. 

Becky has also spent time working for Kings College London’s Centre for Research on Integrate Risk and Resilience, specialising in research on resilience and local leadership in the humanitarian– development – peace nexus. Becky is currently co-chair and focal point, of the UNDRR Stakeholder Engagement Mechanism (SEM) and NGO constituency.

Session speakers

1. Lewis Makurumure, Action 24, Zimbabwe

Lewis Makurumure is a sustainable development engineer with a focus on community development. Engineer Makurumure has experience in Disaster Management, Climate Change, and Renewable Energy. Lewis has worked extensively on community-based resilience-building approaches in Zimbabwe with a focus on empowering frontline communities in marginalized areas and a special focus on women and young people.

Lewis is a member of the Global Network for civil society on Disaster Risk Reduction (GNDR) since 2009 and a Board member of GNDR representing the Southern Africa region. Currently, Lewis is the National Coordinator for Action 24, a Zimbabwe-based National organization working on Climate Change, DRR, Renewable Energy, Youth Empowerment, Community Development, and Public Policy Advocacy. Action 24 focuses on marginalized communities, mainly rural and urban poor communities and marginalized groups in communities of mainly women, young people, and people living with disabilities. Action 24 works through various partners and networks including the Global Network of Civil Society on Disaster Risk Reduction (GNDR), Climate Action Network, ACCESS coalition, and the Zimbabwe climate change working group.

2. Mr Trymore Simango, Community Representative, Muzarabani community

3. Southea Ek, CWS, Cambodia

Sothea Ek has her degree in Geography and teaching, currently is a Country Representative for CWS Cambodia. Sothea has 20 years’ experience working in the development sector in Cambodia and has been a leader in evolving work that support women and vulnerable groups with improved opportunities to earn a living and contribute economically to their family’s wellbeing.

For the past 10 years, she has been concentrating on program development and implementation with key focus on grassroots integrated community development with emerging awareness/education promoting climate adaptive livelihoods, especially farming-related ones, Water Sanitation and Hygiene, and Emergency Response and Preparedness.

4. Mr Kheav Narith, Kampong Sdam village

5. Bijay Kumar, Executive Director of GNDR

Bijay works as Executive Director of Global Network of CSOs for Disaster Reduction. He has a long track record in humanitarian and development work, particularly in DRR. He has considerable expertise in leading and managing civil society organisations and networks, gained through hands-on experience working in Africa, Europe, South Asia & South East Asia. Bijay is a strong advocate of shifting power from the international system to community-led capacities, preparedness and response facilitated by local organisations. He is also a passionate promoter of human rights and people power, both in policy advocacy and implementation.