3rd Monthly Journal of serving as an intern at MoDMR

North South University

Internship
ENV 498

3rd Monthly Journal Report

Organization: Ministry of Disaster Management and
Relief (MoDMR)

Student Name: Nazifa Tasnim Rodela

Student ID:
Semester: Fall, 2021

Submitted to:
Dr. Name
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands;
M.Sc., Queens College, City University of New York, USA

Table of Contents
 3rd Monthly Journal of serving as an intern at MoDMR

1.0 Internship Timeline...........................................................................................................1

2.0 Journal on Internship.........................................................................................................2
2.1 Week 9...........................................................................................................................2

2.2 Week 10.........................................................................................................................3

2.3 Week 11.........................................................................................................................4

2.4 Week 12.........................................................................................................................6

2.5 Week 13.........................................................................................................................6

3.0 Personal Experience from December................................................................................8

3.1 Work Environment........................................................................................................8

3.2 Learnings and Contributions.........................................................................................8

3.3 Challenges So Far..........................................................................................................8

4.0 Conclusion........................................................................................................................8
 3rd Monthly Journal of serving as an intern at MoDMR

1.0 Internship Timeline

Following is the briefing of my internship activities on the first month at MoMDR.

Month 03: December 2021

Week 9 28 November – 02 December

28 November Publishing daily report on Covid19 condition.

1 December Compiling fire safety report and drafted daily disaster preparedness report.
2 December Attended meeting for ration planning.

Week 10 05 December – 09 December

05 December E-governance and development program meeting

06 December Studied conditions of the OMNICRON variant
08 December Worked on preventive measures for OMNICRON

Week 11 12 December – 15 December

12 December Revised guideline for the new variant.

13 November Meeting with the innovation team.
15 December Article submission on OMNICRON in Bangladesh in 12 December.

Week 12 19 December – 23 December

19 December Study conducted to report the next disaster bulletin report.

20 December Aggregate report on fire damages for the previous week.
23 December Submission for bulletin report.
Week 13 26 December – 30 December

26 December Correction and approval of article

28 December Feedback on bulletin report

30 December Final day at office.

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2.0 Journal on Internship

2.1 Week 9

Publishing daily report on Covid19 condition. 28 November, 2021

One mandatory that Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (MoDMR) reports is the
covid19 situation update. This report shows a mandatory update for multiple categories including
the total deaths and infected within the previous 24 hours. This time span may vary depending on
the severity of the condition. This reporting falls under the category of daily reporting and will
be the last report made for the month of November. For the formulation of the report, my
involvement for the formation of this report was immense as my supervisor asked active
participation from me in the formation of the report. Thus, for the completion of the report which
also abided by the reports maintained previously, my contribution lied in the following segments
of the report.

1. Reporting for the new infected, recovery and death for the last 24 hours.
2. Isolation and quarantine report for the aggregate duration of the pandemic.
3. Reporting for the number of Covid19 patients under the jurisdiction of the army.
4. Compiling the aggregate ration relief distribution for the last week.

Compiling fire safety report and drafted daily disaster preparedness 1 December, 2021
report.

After my success in completing the Covid19 situation report, my supervisor tasked me with
working on another mandatory report that is brought out by the Ministry of Disaster
Management and Relief (MoDMR). This time around, I was tasked with working on the fire
safety report. The disaster report is another mandatory aspect and contains segments that are
directly related with the aspects of disaster management. This report is usually used to get a
measure of whether or not any precautionary step must be taken for cyclone or other relevant
disaster signals. CPP Command Area consists of three field level committees namely Unit
Committee, Union Committee and Upazilla Committee. These committee formulates data and
transfers it to the corporate branch where the formulation of the annual reports take place. I have

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been tasked with working on this report previously as well, but on a much smaller scale. For this
time around, my supervisor asked me to compile the reports that were sent and form the fire
safety segment of the report. I worked on it the whole day and after a few feedbacks, the head of
unit approved of my work which led to me completing a segment for MoDMR’s essential
reports.

Attended meeting for ration planning. 2 December, 2021

Ration planning is essential too keep track of where the relief is provided and to what extent the
demand and supply is being met. This is usually brought up in a specific meeting where the
budget decisions and strategies relating to the ration distribution are made.

My supervisor asked me to participate in the meeting to gather findings on what variables are
considered before making a strategy for ration distribution. Thus, I participated in the meeting
where in presence of the assistant secretary for Committee for Relief Service (CRS), the
budgetary decisions where presented for the next month. This also followed by strategies for
targeting particular areas. Many of the decisions were made considering the weather change and
the suffering of the general people in mind. I actively participated and shared my viewpoints on
many of the strategies and ultimately documented the process. This report on the meeting was
then submitted to my supervisor.

2.2 Week 10

E-governance and development program meeting. 05 December, 2021

Governance through the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services
has been one of the annual goals of MoDMR. This involves usage of digital technologies for the
facilitation of information from the different branches. A big involvement of online services like
big data, social media and apps have streamlined the process of communication at a much higher
precision. However, the annual goal for MoDMR is to further streamline this process.

This meeting primarily focused on improving the communication channel with CPP. Thus, the
meeting was mainly held with the innovation team to learn about their plans to further augment
this communication process. This was heavily prioritized because dynamic information flow is

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necessary as depending on how fast MoDMR can get out information, it becomes easier for the
general populace to prepare for the occurrence of any emergency.

Studied conditions of the OMNICRON variant. 06 December, 2021

CDC has made active collaborations with the global counsel of public health and other partners
of the industry to know information regarding Omnicron. The first case of this variant has been
found in the US in December 1. It is not known as to how the virus spreads or the severity of the
illness it will cause. It is also yet unknown as to whether or not the vaccines are effective against
it.

This is estimated that the spread of this variant will be higher compared to the SARS-CoV-2 but
with respect to the Delta variant, how fast it will spread still remains unknown. CDC confirms
that this will also spread from person to person regardless of the state of vaccination.

Worked on preventive measures for OMNICRON. 08 December, 2021

After the vaccination program, the rate of infected had been reducing gradually. However, it
must be looked back as to the reasons that were related to how the virus had spread in the first
place. Focusing on preventive measures, I performed research on the existing secondary research
data and figured out measures which could be taken in order to prevent this variant from wide
spreading. My findings were then submitted to my supervisor who then sent it to the higher
officials to submit an official feedback.

2.3 Week 11

Revised guideline for the new variant. 12 December, 2021

Today marks the day that the new variant has been detected in Bangladesh. This was detected in
two players from the women’s cricket team who had been tested as Covid19 positive and
subsequent results show the presence of the Omnicron variant in them.

This served as a wakeup call for MoDMR. During the beginning of the month, following the
advent of the variant in the US, World Health Organization reported discovery of the virus in 24

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countries. Thus, considering the situation, MoDMR has prioritized this variant to be the primary
concern and has revised guidelines for preventing this variant from spreading.

Meeting with the innovation team. 13 December, 2021

This meeting has been a follow-up on the e-governance meeting held on December 5. This
meeting had been called by the innovation team to display their new streamlined process for
communicating. This has been approved by the ministers in charge of administration and has
been given a lead time of 1 month to test run and display results on the new plan. The outcomes
of the meeting were documented by me as per the instruction of my supervisor.

Article submission on OMNICRON in Bangladesh in 12 December. 15 December, 2021

After the case of the first OMNICRON variant, I along with another member of the research
division had been tasked with writing an article on the existing data known about this variant.
This had been assigned to us on December 12, but we finally completed the article and send it
for feedback awaiting its publication from the website.

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2.4 Week 12

Study conducted to report the next disaster bulletin report. 19 December, 2021

MoDMR made the decision to publish a delayed report owing to the priority set on the
OMNICRON variant. For this purpose of publishing the next disaster bulletin report, I had been
physically summoned to work on the new reports. This was exciting because I could finally
contribute physically and provided an enhanced learning experience. My task involved primarily
to collect data from the other branches and formulate the report after filtering important relevant
information.

Aggregate report on fire damages for the previous week. 20 December, 2021

This report will be published in the end of this month and thus for this, I was tasked with finding
the fire damages that have been reported for the previous week. This process is similar to the one
I’ve experienced a few weeks ago. But being present physically has been a big improvement in
my productivity.

Submission for bulletin report. 23 December, 2021

The work I’ve been doing on the bulletin report had finally been completed and today I
submitted my report after consulting different matters with the research team.

2.5 Week 13

Correction and approval of article. 26 December, 2021

The article I had given on the OMNICRON variant received some feedbacks and I corrected and
incorporated all the changes after which it got approved.

Feedback on bulletin report. 28 December, 2021

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Some more feedback had come on the bulletin report and I took the whole day to incorporate the
changes. This was a hectic experience but at the end, I managed to get the approval on the
incorporated changes.

Final day at office. 30 December, 2021

Since today marked my last day at office, I wasn’t given any work. I received a proper farewell
which marked the ending of a very wonderful experience.

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3.0 Personal Experience from December

3.1 Work Environment

This month contained more physical visits which allowed me to experience the work
environment better and indulge in the work a lot more.

3.2 Learnings and Contributions

As with the previous month, I’ve had a lot of challenging tasks and got to do things out of my
expertise and comfort zone, but it ultimately helped me to grow. My learning curve has been
relatively high this month as I also got to experience how the company prioritized publishing
reports for the newly discovered OMNICRON variant. This made me understand the nature of
prioritizing work. This month also, I’ve had the opportunity of creating articles, documenting
meetings and working on reporting events that has further augmented my writing prowess.

3.3 Challenges So Far

This month provided the challenge of OMNICRON, the new variant. Due to this I’ve had to
maintain strict deadlines for my work and submission of relevant reports. The dynamic nature
was a new experience for me and was definitely very challenging.

4.0 Conclusion

My line manager has further involved me in various activities this month. I’ve gotten the first-
hand experience of participating in different important functions of disaster management. I
received a wonderful farewell and got to work with some wonderful team members. Adopting
with then have been difficult at start but I managed through. Overall, I’d say my learning curve
has been excellent.