DARAJA (Developing Risk Awareness through Joint Action) is a project aims at improving ACCESS to, and enhances the USE of relevant weather and Climate information by residents of informal settlements in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi in Kenya. This will enable resident to be more resilience and better prepared to take adaptive measures. The project also aims at enabling city Authorities to make better climate and weather informed decision in relation to Urban informal settlement.

It is a project under the Weather and Climate information Service for Africa (WISER) East Africa programme through DFID funding and managed by the UK Met Office. The partners in implementation are CCI (Tanzania), KDI (Kenya) and Resurgence (UK) together with Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA) and Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD).

• 1. Improved resilience of people living in Urban Informal settlements through Co-creating interfaces and services to address climate related risks.
• 2. Reliable Co-produced and accessible climate information series to inform planning decision at city level or settlement level.
• 3. Increase the use of reliable, co produced and accessible climate information services by the people living in informal settlements.

Daraja pilot project elements had three channels of information as a means of enabling the communication of Weather and Climate information. These were identified through the information obtained through baseline study and stakeholders engagement in the co- designing process.

School Channel

They are Championing the importance of Weather and Climate information. Students from various schools are trained through school clubs to interpret and communicate Weather and Climate information to fellow students and their parents. Through this students educate, inform and encourage their parents to take action in response to weather forecasts. This is done with support of their teachers who hae been trained on communication Weather and Climate information.

“Students informed their parents especially those living at ehe valley. They used the information to protect their belongings which usually were being destroyed by flooding including school books for students. This time the case was different, precautions were taken much earlier” Ms. Jane Brown – Keko mwanga Primary School.

Media Channel

Radio and TV emerged as a preferred channel for communicating Weather and Climate information. Journalists from DARAJA’s media partners were trained to interpret Weather and climate information and provide impact related advices together with regular weather updates.

Mtaa leaders and Community groups leaders Channel

Local mtaa leaders, with Disaster committee and community group leaders are trained to interpret the forecast as provided by Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA). A community communication system has been set where trained community leaders share the weekly and severe forecasts in an easy to understand format through a cascade of Messages that are disseminated by SMS or Word of Mouth.