Just One Door Away: Community Heroes in Disaster Response

In Barangay 1, a fishing community in Bacolod, the Philippines, disaster preparedness comes in all shapes, sizes and voices. This is because the community’s greatest strength lies in how they care for one another. This IPUR seed grant project, led by Dr Serina Rahman and Joanna Hioe, and titled “Just One Door Away,” highlighted how the low-income fishing community built resilience to disasters through everyday relationships, informal networks, and local heroes. 

Through a year-long ethnographic research, three months of fieldwork, interviews, workshops, and community storytelling, the project emphasised the power of storytelling, community-driven solutions, and the importance of understanding local communication channels like gossip. 

Insights from the research were turned captured in 9 heart-warming mini-documentaries which also painted a very stark picture of the realities of those living in the community when it came to being prepared for disasters. The videos and research findings were also shared with government agencies, NGOs, church leaders and the communities themselves. It also created space for residents to tell their own stories and shape how disaster risk is understood. Instead of seeing communities as passive recipients of aid, the project showed them as active problem-solvers with deep local knowledge and ready-made systems of care.