Background and Objectives

Background

The impact of the cyclone and the destruction it wrought took lives, annihilated settlements,
displaced survivors and led to the loss of productive assets and housing. In total, approximately
450,000 houses were completely destroyed while 350,000 houses were damaged as a result of
cyclone Nargis which struck on the 2nd May, 2008 in the Delta of Myanmar. Many of the
structures built are inadequate, unsafe and unable to provide sufficient protection to affected
households.

Given the large numbers of people in need and the nature of the risk, the Shelter Improvement
and Disaster Risk Reduction Project funded by Rotary International 3045 focused on providing:
* Construction materials to ensure adequate coverage and protection from the elements (rain,
wind and sun),
* Construction support – skilled labor (carpenters),
* Technical support to identify critical gaps in construction and introduce disaster risk reduction
techniques

Objectives

The Shelter Improvement and Disaster Risk Reduction Project objective is to enable vulnerable
households to bring about critical improvements to damaged houses and to increase knowledge
of Disaster Risk Reduction at the community level.

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Activities
* Community mobilization
* Training and Capacity building the Shelter Construction Committee in Beneficiary selection,
Community contracting oversight, Proposal writing, Cash management, handling complaints,
DRR construction techniques
* Empowered Women's Participation

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Results

* Communities were provided with 'community mobilization grants' which needed to be used
based on project criteria.
* 20 Carpenters from 10 villages were trained in DRR construction techniques.
* 34 demonstration shelters were constructed by the carpenters through Shelter Construction
Committee
* 30 people in 10 villages were trained in beneficiary selection, community contracting
oversight, proposal writing, cash management, Handling Complaints and DRR construction
Techniques to form a community based shelter group to encourage community participation in
DRR
* Upgraded 80 existing shelters to new DRR standards with assistance from carpenters trained
by the project
* 20 Carpentry kits were distributed—one for every trainee.
Development Partners / Partners
Development Partners: Rotary 3450
Partners: Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, UNDP, CDC in each communit