The
51 families arriving at the new housing site at Gurubebille,
in the southern district of Matara, come with few belongings.
Some have hired small trucks to bring their furniture, potted
plants and personal effects. But most are able to squeeze themselves
and their possessions into tiny three-wheeled taxis.
Life has not been easy for many of these families. Some have
spent the past two years in cramped wooden shelters, others
have lived with relatives. But the wait is over.
Today the Gurubebille site is a hive of activity as vehicles
and people busily move around the 26 blocks of new two-storey
homes. In one house, three year old Nethmi hurtles up a flight
of stairs and excitedly calls out to her parents that she wants
the corner room on the second story of her new home. Her parents
- Wasantha and Udeni – are all smiles as they watch their
daughter explore the room and then run out to see the next room
that she has already decided her parents will take.
Nethmi was only one year old when the tsunami washed away her
family’s simple house and all of their possessions. “The
tsunami took away everything,” says her mother Udeni.
The family lived with Nethmi’s grandparents after the
tsunami before being allocated a new house at the Gurubebille
housing site.
Yards away from Nethmi’s home, extended family members
are helping the Lionel family unload furniture and other household
items from a truck. M.P Lionel and his family quickly lay out
the furniture they managed to recover from amongst the debris
of their old house. M.P. Lionel’s daughter is already
watering a wide strip of grass planted along a retaining wall
that runs beside her new home, while her brothers dig holes
on the border of the property to plant tree saplings.
According to Belgian Red Cross – Flanders’ country
coordinator, Wim Cloots, the Gurubebille housing project has
been a truly collaborative effort. “This project is a
great example of using the expertise of different Red Cross
societies to address the needs of vulnerable people and make
a real difference in their lives”, he says.
The Belgian Red Cross - Flanders coordinated and partly-funded
the project, with additional funding support coming from the
Netherlands and German Red Cross Societies. Meanwhile, the American
Red Cross has implemented an innovative water and sanitation
network for the settlement. To reduce the impact of the new
housing site on the environment, waste from the 51 houses will
flow into a newly constructed artificial sub surface wetland,
planted with a variety of reed beds that will naturally purify
the waste water.
The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society, through its branch in Matara,
has also supported the project.
The completion of the Gurubebille housing site marks the end
of a challenging operation. At one stage, construction was delayed
by a month as a dispute over land titles went to a local court.
The process of verifying who would be moving into the new homes
– a cooperative process between the Red Cross and local
authorities – was also delayed. In addition, the Red Cross
was dependent on the government to connect the site to water
mains and the electricity grid.
“People sometimes don’t take into account that we
are building a community not just individual houses,”
says Cloots. “This includes internal road networks, drainage
facilities, retaining walls and landscaped areas.”
Almost 75 percent of the 760 houses being built by the Red Cross
Red Crescent in Matara have been completed and handed over to
their new owners. Across Sri Lanka the Red Cross has built or
contributed towards the construction of more than 7,400 houses,
with a further 12,000 at various stages of construction.
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The
Lionel family, proud owners of a new house in Gurubebille,
wastes no time in getting their garden underway. After
more than two years, 51 families in the southern Sri Lankan
district of Matara now have new homes. (p15458)
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Three
year old Nethmi, asleep here on her mother Udeni’s
lap, was only one when the tsunami washed away her family’s
house and possession. Now, thanks to the work of the Belgian-Flanders,
Netherlands, German, American and Sri Lankan Red Cross
Societies, Nethmi has a new room and her family a new
start. (p15457)
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“People
sometimes don’t take into account that we are building
a community not just individual houses,” explains
Wim Cloots, country coordinator for the Belgian Red Cross
– Flanders. For example, as well as building the
26 new houses in Gurubebille, the Red Cross has also developed
an integrated water and sanitation system.(p15456)
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