8. Nepal Safer Shelter, Resilient Communities Project

The principle project that I am involved with from Habitat for Humanity (HFH) Australia is the Safe Shelter, Resilient Communities (or Chhana) project in the Eastern part of Nepal.  This project’s key objectives are to strengthen disaster resilience of 5 rural communities and improve shelter quality through mason training and construction of demonstration houses, housing improvements and providing access to housing finance.  To begin working on a project like this, it is essential to engage with local community members to drive the process of understanding their needs and prioritise interventions.

HFH Nepal has partnered with two local NGO’s in Nepal that have existing relationships with the community and implemented a PASSA process (Participatory Approach to Safe Shelter Awareness) which involves the establishment of a representative group of the community of about 20-30 members, which meet on a regular basis to understand what the disaster history of the area is, identify highest risks that they face from disasters, and determine which actions should be undertaken to mitigate those risks and build a community more resilient to disasters.  

These groups provide the opportunity to empower women by giving them a stronger voice in community decision-making and enhances their social status especially when the results of action plans begin construction in the community.

The groups also encourage engagement with people with disabilities in community decisions and developing project solutions that cater to their specific needs. 

Thanking a vision impaired member of the community for his participation in the PASSA process.

Women have been participating in mason training, household electrical wiring training and participate in the construction of the new demonstration houses and housing improvements as both skilled and unskilled labour.  This is a group of women who have participated in the training.

The PASSA groups have also resulted in a stronger voice from the community with local government authorities, which has been a huge unplanned benefit of the project, to the point where one local government representative has funded and built a massive levee along the banks of the adjacent river to counteract rising river waters during the monsoon from flooding the community.

I also had the honour of being asked to dedicate the demonstration house in this community to the family that had been selected by the community according to agreed selection criteria, a single mother with her two teenage children.  

Before and after photos (the before has been stripped of its thatch roof and improvised walls):

Another demonstration house built by the trained masons in another community was provided to a single mother whose husband had died and she had since been marginalised in the house of his parents, forcing her out to where she lived for a time with her mother in a very small and inadequate housing arrangement.  The family have since decorated the door frames of their new home quite beautifully!  Culturally, the people are not ones to smile for the camera, so this photo is the result of me working them with my ways to bring a smile to their face.

We also visited a number of new housing improvements of which the project is building 20 across the 5 communities (example before and after photos).

One of the successes of the program has been the reintroduction of bamboo as a credible safe shelter material.  While this has always been a traditional construction material, in more modern times it has been less popular because of a perceived lack of durability.  However with modern construction technology it is being used in this project’s demonstration housing to show how durable it can be if used correctly.  This equates to massive environmental benefits by being locally available with high regrowth rates while reducing impacts on forests and impacts caused by brick manufacture.

One of the issues with bamboo is its potential for deterioration through mite action.  Therefore a treatment is required and our partners have established a bamboo treatment facility locally which allows batch treatment to ensure the bamboo remains unaffected by mites in the longer term.

On two occasions on two separate days I was transported from the community meetings to attend meetings with two municipal government mayors and their Chief Administration Officers (the ones who holds the purse strings) to discuss the current project and our plans for the future into next financial year.  Following very politician-like experiences it seems the elected representatives and the bureaucrats present from two separate municipalities where the project is being implemented are  extremely happy with the work and completely on-board for a funding partnership with HFH Australia beginning in July 2019 to deliver more housing and community development programs for the people in this highly vulnerable part of Nepal.