June 2015, Nepal Earthquake Emergency Update

Due to the generosity of our supporters, ABM is pleased to announce that $110,000 has now been sent to assist victims of Nepals earthquake. Funds were directed through ACT Alliance specifically for the work of the Lutheran World Federation, who has a long history of development work in the area. Below is a summary of the current and future relief activities that they will undertake with local partners.

LWF Narrative summary of planned intervention

Intervention Districts – Initially, LWF distributed emergency shelter, WASH, Food & NFI items in the

5 districts of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Sindhupalchowk, and Rasuwa. Through detailed assessments and participation in ACT Nepal Forum discussions and other coordination structures,

LWF will increasingly focus on 4 districts: Lalitpur, Rasuwa, Sindhupalchowk, and Dolakha. LWF plans longer term engagement with communities in these four districts in line with LWF’s LRRD principals.

LWF will further focus their work within the chosen districts and VDCs by using a participatory assessment with local communities to identify particularly vulnerable families: women-headed households, dalit families, families with disabled members or members affected by HIV, families with only elderly members, and ultra-poor families.

 

Shelter – In the 3 weeks immediately after the earthquake, LWF distributed emergency shelter kits in the form of tarpaulins and guy ropes to 7,200 families in 5 districts. Assessments 3 weeks after the earthquake have found that most families have already constructed temporary/transitional shelter using salvaged materials from their collapsed homes, sometimes borrowing money to purchase inputs. This is a tribute to the resilience and self-reliance of these rural communities. However, some of these already-constructed transitional shelters have safety and environmental issues.

Within the bigger target group for emergency shelter will be 17,000 families in the LWF target VDCs with destroyed or uninhabitable homes, LWF will seek to assist a smaller group of 4,500 particularly vulnerable families with transitional and permanent housing.

 

LWF’s approach will be three-fold with regard to transitional shelter:

1. Advice and limited inputs for families who have already built transitional shelters with safety and environmental issues;

2. Advice and inputs on building a transitional shelter to minimum standards agreed with government and shelter cluster for those still in emergency shelter;

3. Advice and inputs in repairing or improving the family latrine with water seal pan and privacy superstructure.

 

Food Security – LWF has assisted 7,865 families in 5 districts with ready-to-eat and 2-week basic food family packages in the weeks following the earthquake. Further food assistance will be limited to the emergency period and linked to recovery of normal livelihoods. Large scale basic food commodity distribution is planned by WFP and other food cluster members for 1.5 million earthquake-affected persons for a period of 3 months. LWF food assistance will be reserved for gaps that develop amongst particularly vulnerable groups and families within the LWF focus VDCs.

It is expected that this assistance will be needed until the harvest of the next crop in 2-3 months for families dependent on agriculture, and upon scaling up of house reconstruction work for families dependent on daily wage labour.

 

Non Food Items – LWF distributed blankets, cooking kits, and solar lights as needed to 9,354 families in the three weeks following the earthquake. Further NFI assistance for around 5,700 families will depend on detailed assessment of losses sustained by homeless families within the LWF geographical focus areas. Many have already received essential household equipment, or retrieved them from the ruins of their homes, but it is expected that there will be gaps, particularly amongst more remote and vulnerable households. NFIs distributed may include kitchen utensils, baby kits, clothing, blankets, mosquito nets, and torchlights.

 

WASH – LWF has distributed family hygiene kits to 6,227 families in the initial weeks following the earthquake. Assessments have found that damage to permanent water systems in less than initially feared. LWF will assist 17 communities with essential repairs to permanent systems in the

VDCs targeted by LWF. Hygiene awareness training, which is gender sensitive, will be carried out and water treatment materials will be supplied to approximately 8,800 families in those VDCs where the permanent supply has been disrupted to ensure that temporary water supply and storage are safe. In addition to repairs, longer term activities will include protection of water sources threated by earthquake-initiated landslides and erosion through structural and vegetative measures.

 

Psychosocial Support – LWF psychosocial support to earthquake disaster affected communities will be provided through community and family networks to foster psychological and social recovery, and special protection needs. It will primarily be through mainstreaming of psychosocial ACT

Alliance principles in all sectors, through the delivery of basic services in participatory, safe and socially appropriate ways.

 

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