This manual, Faith, Spirituality and Culture in Disaster Resilience, conceived as part of the project “Culture, Faith, and Resiliency: A Bottom-up Approach to Community-Managed Disaster Risk Assessment” and funded by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Humanitarian efforts for community resiliency typically emphasize pre-paredness and planning as yardsticks for recovery in disaster situations, and often attempts to complement and provide support to enhance existing capacities of government structures towards this end. These efforts, while always most logical and convenient for programming, sometimes gloss over the importance of certain community features, specifically faith and culture, as equally important resources for resiliency.
