Recovery support to flood victims in Nepal

• Background

The torrential rain from 11-14, August 2017 created massive floods and several landslides in 26 districts throughout the country. As per Nepal government data, the flood caused 126 deaths, 50 missing and many people got severe injuries and lost property. In west Nepal, Dang, Banke, Bardiya and Kailali districts are heavily affected by flood, flash flood and land slide. As per the government data 3531households were fully damaged and 127187 people were directly affected. Due to flood the displaced households were staying in temporary shelter in roadside camps, public buildings and host families. People were living in temporary shelters, particularly pregnant and lactating mothers, children and people were vulnerable as they are more exposed to unsafe conditions.

• Introduction

Backward Society Education (BASE) has been working for integrated community development in plain areas of west Nepal and one of the major components is disaster preparedness and response. BASE with the financial support from GlobalGiving has been implementing the project called -South Asia Flooding Relief and Recovery Grant and the project provided support to flood affected families in Dang, Banke and Bardiya districts. The objective of the support is to support and get back to their life normal.

Major activities carried out

The following are the major activities initiated and carried out by BASE in the project areas;

1 Bamboo housing support:

 The flood damaged houses terribly in Rapti Sonari Municipality. BASE provided support to flood affected families to construct their home and shelter. In Banke district altogether 72 affected families received support and Dang district 6 families' received support. So, all together 78 families received support for bamboo housing.  Most of the families got Bamboo in Rapti Sonari Rural Municipality as the Municipal Chairperson advised BASE. Before selection of affected families, BASE coordinated to Rapti Sonari Rural Municipality to get the approval of the project as well as fact data /information. After the support, flood affected families are happy to receive support. Now they are staying at home and stored their grains.

2.School uniform support to children:

In close coordination and cooperation of school administration of Bishow Jyoti Basic School of Kunaithi village of Bardiya, BASE organized school education material distribution ceremony which started from Feb. 25, 2018 and concluded on 28 Feb. 2018. Altogether, 25 school students (10 girls and 15 boys) received support from the project. During the educational material distribution ceremony, parents of the children were also invited. Based on the data, BASE prepared School uniform to grade 1- 5 school children for their continue education who lost their educational materials and uniform by flood in Aug. 2017

3 Blankets support:

Due to the flood all the cloths including food grain were swept away and damaged. So BASE provided blankets to 50 families based on the criteria sets by the district team. Most elderly and fully damaged households received blanket support and each family received 2 blankets. The support is helping affected families to get warm during cold or summer period. 

4 Hygiene kits support and distribution: 

In order to maintain and promote personal hygiene of individuals of the flood affected families, after flood, hygiene kits were distributed to 55 households through the project. During the distribution of hygiene kits, hygiene promotion education session was also conducted. At the time of hygiene promotion education sessions, community people were made aware about the way of hand washing, proper usage of toilets, and purification of water, food hygiene and menstrual hygiene. Before the sessions, they were not aware about hygiene behavior practices. After hygiene promotion education session community people are practicing hygiene behavior. The each kit which was distributed includes the items like; bathing soap-8 (100 grams), laundry soap-4 (200 grams), nail cutter-1, towel-1, tooth brush-5, tooth paste-1(100 grams), sanitary pad-1, bucket-2(15 Liters.) Mug-1 (1.5 ltr.)

Hygiene promotion session conducted in different places in ex-Kamaiya community of flood affected area in Bardiya.  Total 5 events has been conducted with 235 (105male and 130 female) got education session.

Significant change as result of support of South Asia Flooding Relief and Recovery Grant

By the torrential rain fall since 11 to 14 August, 2017, people lost their food grains, clothes, utensils and cash as well. The sources of water were contaminated. They have poor purchasing capacity. Not only that they are not aware about hand washing after contamination of water during flooding, use of toilet, food hygiene , water purification and menstrual hygiene, The  people are practicing hand washing with soap at critical time, which project has supported. They are using bucket for water purification and storing water. The hygiene promotion education sessions has made the community people aware on sanitation behavior change and are practicing which will develop habit constant practice in long run.

Cause of delaying reporting: Nepal government announced general election in Nepal in two phases on Nov. 26, 2017 for first phase and on Dec. 7, 2017 for second phase.  The election commission of Nepal issued the election code of conduct from the effective date prior one month of vote casting date. Due to the election code of conduct, we were not allowed to implement any developmental activities in the community and due to above situation BASE was unable to put forward the project initiatives including South Asia Flooding Relief and Recovery Grant in time. There was another election called- National Assembly in Nepal which was recently held on Feb 7, 2018 and due to this election there was also code of conduct for 2 weeks therefore it made delay in reporting to GlobalGiving

• Project Report of flood victims recovery support. (PDF)