Temporary shelter construct for earthquake victim

Raksha Nepal’s birth in 2004 was for the mental, physical, economical and social protection of women driven towards sexual violence, rape and forced prostitution. Since its establishment, it has been awakening the government to end all forms of violence and exploitation against women and children. Furthermore, Raksha Nepal (RN) has been involved in rescue, protection, legal support, psycho-social counseling, health care at free of cost and also has been leading the women towards economic empowerment through income generating skills training. The RN has been working in the field of women and children for last 12 years. Hence, everybody is aware of the activities of the Raksha Nepal.

On the day of April 25 2015, in other words 12 Baisakh 2072 there was a big Earthquake in Nepal of 7.8 Richter scale. The epicenter of the quake was Barpak village of Gorkha district. Seventeen days later, there was a big aftershock of 6.8 Richter scale. Due to the quake more than eight thousand and eight hundred people lost their lives, also more than 22 thousand people were injured. Similarly, more than 2 thousand 6 hundred government offices got completely destructed and about 3 thousand and 7 hundred buildings were partially damaged. Likewise, on the public side, more than 5 lakh 91 thousand houses were completely damaged and about 2lakh 76 thousand houses were partially damaged (Government of Nepal, Home Ministry).

Among all the Nepalese people, women and children were in the most vulnerable and difficult situation after a terrible earthquake in Nepal. During the difficult situation, at first we controlled ourselves and then we started to bring the helpless population in normal situation, and also focused ourselves in providing reliefs to the affected people. In the meantime, we also received many applications in the hope of support and relief from many places.

However, the RN team was residing inside the tarpaulin because the building of Raksha Nepal was also cracked. We thought that at least we are alive, so we should work for others whose houses are completely damaged. Hence at the first stage, we distributed different relief materials such as: rice, lentils, oil, salt, tarpaulin and mats throughout many villages.

The main problem among the quake affected people was their shelter. The monsoon was very near, providing a temporary shelter was a way to protect the people from heavy rain. At the second stage of relief distribution, we focused our mission in building temporary shelters. The RN had received altogether 85 applications requesting help for reconstructing their houses from a very remote village of Solukhumbu district which was 272 Km far from Kathmandu. The village where we plan to go for the distribution of relief lies in the lap of Sagarmatha (Mount Everest), which is the highest peak in the world. About 50% houses in that place were destructed in a way that people could sit there no longer. During the time of crisis, people and other social organizations were paying their attention only in the places which were linked to the highways and were easily accessible.

The RN tried to meet the request of the needy people of building their houses by asking the donors, although we were not able to get any immediate responses from the donors.

There was going to be a heavy rainfall soon, so the RN managed NPRs 15000 or USD 150 from 15 people. The total amount collected was NPRs 225,000 for the earthquake affected people so that we could save the lives of children, delivery women and old age people. In this sequence, the RN in the month of Asar 2072 led a campaign to build temporary houses for the affected people living in Changshar village of Kerung VDC ward no. 1 of Solukhumbu district. In this campaign, the RN build and handover 15 houses to the local people and also distributed food such as: biscuits and noodles .Furthermore, daily uses stuffs such as: shoes and slippers were also given to the local people.

The journey was set from Raksha Nepal to Solukhumbu in an aim to help the vulnerable people of the country at the time of crisis at about 11o'clock in the morning. The RN reached the village after 14 hours long and difficult journey.T here were also some challenges and bitter experiences during the journey. The road was very difficult and muddy and there was a landslide which obstructed the team to reach the spot Changshar village. So, the team unloaded the reliefs from the mini truck and kept in Kerung VDC ward no: 9. the team distributed the materials from there. In the Kerung VDC, ward no: 1 and 9 are neighbor villages. We had a wish to help all the earthquake affected people but we were only to help the 15 families only. However, we will keep continue our effort to support the needy people in future.

We are very thankful and obliged to the 15 kind hearted people who helped during the campaign to build the temporary houses and it is a real fact that without those benign people the work would not have been possible.

The people who contributed in building temporary houses for the people of Changshar village, Kerung VDC ward no: 1 are as follows: However, the names of local three people who contributed in making temporary shelter could not be available in preparing this report.

Megzan Cain, US citizen- (Student and Intern of Raksha)

Leslie Brown, US citizen -(Human/women right activist

Carola Gosh, Austrian citizen- (Friends of Raksha)

Amrita Chand, social worker - ( Member of Raksha)

Karuna Kunwar, senior psycho-social counselor (Consultant of Raksha)

Sasmita Chhetri, social worker- (Member of Raksha)

Deepa Lama, social worker- (Group Member of Raksha)

Kunsang Lama, social worker (Local people from Village)

Palu Tamang, social worker- (Local People of Village)

Jharana Thapa, social worker- (Supporters)

Sudip Thapa, social worker – (supporters)

Sarita Tamang, social worker- (Member of Raksha)