Responding to environmental disasters in India and Nepal: Insights from green social work

A growing body of recent empirical and theoretical research has discussed how social work practitioners of South Asia engaged themselves in meeting the challenges of environmental disasters. South Asia is a dynamic and diverse region highly vulnerable to disasters. With diverse backgrounds and rich history of education and practice, social work knowledge in two south Asian countries (India and Nepal) toward reducing disaster risks and vulnerabilities and increasing communities’ resilience has continued to evolve. Although governments, through regional cooperation and the international aid agencies, are investing in disaster resilience infrastructure, hazard governance in South Asian countries remains fragmented and warrants further critical review and model building. Provided this background, this chapter reviews how social work practice, especially green social work approaches, has been applied in the recovery and rehabilitation of communities facing environmental disasters in India and Nepal in the last ten years. The chapter makes a case for the critical needs for revisiting social work practices and the need for introducing green social work practices to nurture disaster resilience communities in the South Asian region. Additionally, the chapter discusses the approaches, challenges, and opportunities for green social work practices in the region. We argue that by decolonizing social work education and practices and ensuring human rights of the disaster-prone communities through achieving both environmental and social justice, South Asian social work can contribute to building disaster-resilient communities in the region.