Actionaid

May 10-June 16, 2006

Nine months after the October 8, 2006 earthquake that struck north of Pakistan, the affectees though survised harsh winter, still fear more hazards with the changing weather patrons. They are not sure about their resettlement and recontruction and restoration of livelihoods at normal scale. There are reports that the people of remote mountainous village and valleys who could not get much attention of the humanitarian and rehabilitation agencies have started their rebuilding process under their natural coping mechanism and traditional wisdom and resources. While there is talk of earthquake resistance shelters and buildings, these marginalized people even do not have basics for sustainable structures and particuarly, in the unpredictable weather changing patrons, they would be at risk of being further displaced.

The Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority's plans and implimentation processes so far have literally failed to give assurance to the affectees of what the authority was doing or planning to do. Some of the relief agencies are reported to have closed or slashed their relief and rehabilitation programmes. Actionaid, however, has a continuous presence in four districts of the two affected regions, providing support to the affected communities.

Community Centres/Medical Centres:

The construction of community centres is progressing with the Mansehra office taking the lead in this aspect. The community have contributed in this endeavour through provision of land, labour and certain material such as wood and stones. Work is also progressing on the health centres in which key health staff will provide curative heath services which are a dire need of the communities. The recruitment of health staff for these centres is currently under process - these will include doctors, community health workers and paramedics. The centres are also being equipped with essential medical equipment which includes Blood Pressure apparatus, stethoscope, stretchers and essential drugs.

In the areas of Manshera and Muzzafarabad a lot of work has gone around providing heath services to the disabled members of the community. The Manshera office has a working relationship with Handicap International that diagnoses and treats disabled persons in communities. While in Muzzafarabad, Helping Hands has provided health services to the disabled in the communities. This activity is of particular help to the disabled members of the community as many of their diseases are curable and treatment can enable them to play their role as productive members of society.

Psycho Social Care:

Those members of the communities that received training in psycho social care are providing support within their communities. Furthermore ERP intends to formalise its partnership with Rozan an NGO which supported psycho social support activities in the field. Rozan will be providing long term support to ERP's psycho social support activities through training and supervision of work.

Shelters

Shelters were provided to the most deserving communities in the winter months which were temporary in nature and acted as a protection against the extreme cold. Subsequently some of these transitional shelters are now being converted into permanent homes in the earthquake affected areas on the demand of the communities who feel that these structures need to be more resilient to the weather conditions and more accommodating. At the same time 134 prefabricated shelters have been provided to a minority community that live in and around the town of Bagh as they hardly received any humanitarian assistance from government and non government organisations. Two hundred prefabricated shelters have also been sent to Muzafarabad office for further distibution.

Livelihoods

As part of the restoration of livelihoods in the earthquake affected areas seeds such as maize are being provided to the communities. At the same time most livestock in the earthquake affected areas either perished or were sold by the owners. Against this backdrop ERP decided to restock livestock of the most vulnerable and deserving people. As such goats and buffaloes are being provided to the communities. The premise behind this being that milk from livestock can be used for both consumption and also in terms of income generating activities. Financial assistance in the form of cash grants to identified families has been distributed in Muzaffarabad. The repair of 31 water mills is also being supported by ERP in the area of Biyari, Battgram. Additionally technical skills training such as plumbing, masonry, carpentry and electrician are also being provided to members of the community.

Water supply

Water supply was severely disturbed or damaged in the aftermath of the earthquake and communities are not only facing problems in accessing clean water but in some areas water borne diseases have reportedly reached epidemic levels. Resultantly ERP has initiated the reconstruction and rehabilitation of eight water supply schemes in all the areas where it works. While responsibility for identification of these projects lay with the community, the technical feasibility of the schemes was undertaken by a consultant engineer.

Special Focus on vulnerable groups

ERP provided about prefabricated dome-shaped shelters to the landless sanitation workers in Bagh, as part of its focus on vulnerable groups. These shelters were pitched on government land owned by the Forestry Department on the agreement that this would be temporary until the government is able to allocate them land. However, on May 23, 2006, officials from the Forest department attacked these sanitary workers shelters, breaking about five and harassing the women who were present during this incident, pressuring them to evict these grounds. ERP provided support to these workers in facilitating their demands through the Earthquake Victims Rights Movement (EVRM) and subsequently supported their strike for three days. As a result of this and substantial press coverage and broad-based support, the Forest department agreed to apologize to the sanitary worker's community and made a commitment that they would not be asked to evict their land until government has allocated alternative land to them.

Visibility/Communications activity

On the communication front, community members, field staff and the Project Director were interviewed by a radio group Jazba-e-Tameer (Enthusiasm for Reconstruction) focusing on ERPs field level and rights based initiatives. The programme has given wide coverage to ERPs work and also tried to increase the understanding of ERP's strategy and activities.

Capacity building of staff

To encourage learning and ensure quality work, the staff is provided opportunities for capacity building on a regular basis. Consequently the second round of PRA training was held for staff of Muzzafrabad and Bagh in Abbottabad in the last month. This initiative has enabled staff to collect information and assess needs of the community in a more participatory manner. A staff member from Bagh also attended a capacity building event arranged by Church World Service on Environmental Impact Assessment .

DA Appraisals

Development Areas appraisals have been conducted in three field areas, Mansehra, Bagh and Muzzafarabad. The process of collecting child profiles from the areas and compiling the appraisal documents has also been completed. The three DAs will be funded by partner affiliates in Italy. The process of documenting case studies from the four field areas has also been initiated. The case studies will illustrate the conditions in the earthquake affected communities and assist in policy and advocacy work.

EMERGING ISSUES

With an end to the relief phase, a number of international, national and local organizations are winding up their activities in the earthquake hit areas. This, together with stringent ERRA controls, is giving a dismal picture. There is a widespread belief amongst locals that once the international focus fades, no reconstruction or rehabilitation is going to happen in their areas.
Reservoirs in Pakistan are drying up, temperatures are soaring and weather forecast predicts little chance of significant rain for at least the next few months. Water shortages worsen in the earthquake affected areas; broken pipelines remain largely unfixed, water channels remain blocked and water springs are drying up. It is women who are going to suffer most in the face of the water crisis, having to spend many hours walking often long distances to fetch sufficient water for daily household use.
There is a growing campaign against NGOs and their activities in the field. This is forcing some organisations to rethink its stratgey and has forced others to withdraw its presence altogther.
The other big concern is inappropriate and inadequate sanitation facilities. Some organizations provided makeshift sanitation amenities in the relief phase. Household members on a self-help basis have also put up their own toilets but there are issues of privacy and segregation associated with these makeshift arrangements. As fabric is hung in place of walls people, especially women, are reluctant to use these facilities. The frequency of bathing too has decreased dramatically. With soaring temperatures hygiene conditions are going to worsen and the incidence of disease is likely to increase drastically.
Rising temperatures have also rendered tents and temporary shelters inhabitable. Both these covers heat up immensely during the day and provide insufficient protection. With delays in compensation money and signs of reconstruction distant, affectees continue to live in derelict conditions.
Issues of land access and entitlements also continue to worsen. Since women heads do not have land rights documents in their name they are being subjugated to family pressures. Brothers of deceased husbands are claiming rights to their land, especially in situations where there is no male offspring to inherit the fathers property. Where there are sons, transfer of land documents has to go through local Patwaris (officials having records of lands) and the process is hindered and made difficult because of high corruption in the system - there are increasing pressures for delivering bribe money.

ENDS