National Response

Building 23% of island’s transitional shelter

Sewalanka Foundation is significantly contributing to rebuilding tsunami-affected communities by constructing 23% of the island’s total requirement for transitional shelter; or 10,767 shelters out of the 47,137 required nationally.

Family outside their home in the Dondra Rural Hospital Shelter Project.

It has been six months since the 26 December 2004 tsunami devastated 950 kilometres of the Sri Lankan coastline; killing nearly 40,000 people and displacing more than 500,000 in eleven districts. The sheer scale of personal and property loss across such a large geographic area has meant that the emergency relief and reconstruction phase is challenging and complex.

Sewalanka Foundation, being a national local non-government organisation, was perfectly poised to respond quickly to this disaster. Emergency relief efforts were underway within hours of the waves hitting the shores. Dry rations and other essential items were sourced during those first weeks from community contributions and international donors.

Then existing donors and new partners enabled regular programs to be established, temporary toilets built and other essential services provided. Sewalanka District Directors worked hard in their communities to provide relief, and liaised with Head-Office staff for the needs they could not source.

Simultaneously, Sewalanka Foundation Head-Office started planning with existing development partners like German Agro Action and the Japan Centre for Conflict Prevention, and new partners like Concern Worldwide and DanChurchAid for their support to construct transitional shelter and provide other phase two items. This quick response meant that the organisation’s transitional shelters program started in mid January 2005, not even one month after the disaster occurred.

Why transitional shelter?

Sewalanka Foundation is building transitional shelters as it recognises that permanent housing will take time to build and organise. Transitional shelters enable families to move from emergency accommodation, like school buildings, tents, or make-shift plastic sheeting to more durable and stable structures until permanent housing solutions are available.

There are many benefits to transitional shelters. They are built to withstand the harsh environmental conditions; the southern and western districts are now facing monsoon, and the east is experiencing soaring heat before the monsoon starts in September.

Shelters also make available many public buildings used for emergency accommodation in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami for their original purposes; like school students returning to classes. As the shelters can be locked, greater security is provided and most importantly, they give families a base in which to restart their livelihoods.

As Ms. Jo de Silva, UNHCR Senior Shelter Coordinator states, “It [transitional shelter] is not a destination but a stepping stone on the route to durable housing and is intended to provide protection from the environment, security, privacy and allow people to re-establish their livelihoods, re-build communities and carry out day-to-day household tasks.”

Building shelters to meet diverse cultural and geographical conditions

As Sri Lanka is a cultural and geographically diverse island, Sewalanka Foundation is working with local government to ensure that designs are culturally sensitive and using locally available materials. The result is variation in design from region to region; for example in Galle, Sewalanka is building half brick and half wooden walls, aluminium roofs and concrete floors, whilst in Mullaitivu, the walls are all brick and the roofs are cadjan.

What is common across all districts is that the transitional shelter meets the requirement of the National Housing Development Authority (NHDA). Each structure is a minimum of 200sq metres, at least 6-8 feet in height and has adequate water and sanitation. In addition to working with NHDA, Sewalanka Foundation is working with District Government Agents to identify land for construction, and to identify families to move from emergency to transitional shelter.

Social mobilisation in the transitional shelter phase

Considering Sewalanka Foundation is primarily a development organisation with the capacity to undertake emergency and relief interventions. A unique component of our approach in transitional shelter has been to incorporate development principles into programs for families moving to transitional shelter..

Sewalanka has 12 years experience in social mobilisation and organisationally we believe it is important that the communities are empowered in the transitional shelter phase to implement their own development activities. To achieve this, Sewalanka has:

–	strengthened existing community-based-organisations (CBOs) for those resettled on permanent land, or
–	established Community Action Groups (CAG) for those living in transitional shelters on semi-permanent land.

As per normal social mobilisation practices, institutional development support is provided through a comprehensive training program including financial management, leadership development, conflict resolution, etc. The communities then in turn elect their own executive committees, and these societies are the main liaison point for Sewalanka. These strengthened community groups will become instrumental in the future livelihood rebuilding and development programs.

Moving forward

Sewalanka Foundation is committed to assisting the families they have built shelter for in the next phase of the relief process. Initial assessments for livelihood rebuilding and development programs have been finalised, training started and in some districts programs with beneficiaries has begun.

>> For further information on this project please contact:
North, Mr. Revathan; South and West, Mr. Tapan Barman; East, Dr. Steve Creech