Stepping over tsunami debris to a new future
BY CHANDANI Jayatilleke
Bawa (centre) and some of the villagers in Marudamunai.
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KALMUNAI - Houses built for fishermen were flattened to the ground
when the tsunami hit Marudamunai in Ampara district on December 26 last
year. The 34 houses had been constructed under a government fisherfolk
development program, but today they are in a shambles.
Frustrated yet with a glint of hope, this fishing community continues
to live in temporary camps at the same site since the tsunami made them
homeless and jobless. Currently, they largely live on relief provided by
the government and other organisations.
Even after six months, this community has not been able to restart
its livelihood - fishing - due to two reasons.
Firstly, they do not have any fishing equipment as they got washed
away and secondly, the sea where they had been doing 'madel' fishing is
filled with debris. And it is not possible to restart fishing until the
debris is cleared.
While this community is idling, swinging between despair and hope,
ITDG, an institution promoting small technologies has come forward to
assist them by rebuilding their houses.
ITDG plans to rebuild 34 houses, each house costing about five to six
lakhs of rupees.
Mohammed Shackeel of the ITDG office in Ampara who is in-charge of
this project told the Daily News that the proposed houses are
essentially low-cost houses and not cheaply-built houses.
"We are using a special, improved technology called 'rat-trap' to
build these houses. This technology is widely used in countries such as
India," he said.
The advantage in this technology is that its cost is about 28 per
cent lower than building a house in the normal way. However, this needs
skilled masons. "To meet that requirement we have a group of trained
'basses' in Nikeweratiya whom we trained under a pilot project."
In this method the use of raw materials such as cement, sand, brick
is quite low. No plaster is needed which is another saving.
The roof also will be a combination of cement slabs and tiles. These
houses can resist earthquakes up to 6.5 on the Richter Scale.
"We have done such houses in Nikeweratiya as a pilot project and the
University of Moratuwa has certified this method as a safe and
economically profitable house building technique," Shackeel added.
Shackeel said they have many different housing designs. "We have
taken gender sensitiveness into consideration and each house will be
constructed according to the requirements of the main female member of
the household.
There are instances where the female member would like to have the
kitchen or the lavatory at a certain area so we have to listen to their
preferences when designing each house. There are also specially designed
houses which are disabled-friendly," he said.
ITDG officials have already given an idea of these houses to the
local community through a presentation and it responded quite
appreciatively.
V. Adam Bawa (50) was an owner of a house in the NHDA scheme in
Marudamunai for fishermen.
When the tsunami came in its full strength, on December 26th, Bawa's
house and the rest of the houses got washed away.
"We lost everything, the house, the fishing equipment and all our
belongings. Now we have nothing, except relief given by the Government
and other organisations," he said.
"We haven't got any fishing equipment as yet, even if we have the
equipment, we can't go fishing immediately because the sea is full of
rubbish and it is difficult for us to restart fishing under this
condition," Bawa said. Many other villagers also expressed similar
ideas.
M. Jasmy who is the ITDG coordinator in the village said, the
villagers were really happy to learn about this housing project and they
are eagerly waiting for construction work to start.
Work has already been started in many tsunami affected areas.
According to a recent United Nations report it will take as long as 10
years to rebuild what was destroyed.
And Sri Lanka alone will have to build more than 90,000 homes for its
half-million displaced people. |