It
is well after midnight but torch lights are sweeping over the
walls of houses and exited discussion can be heard in the dark
on Kudahuvadhoo Island. This night time house inspection would
seem like a suspicious spare time activity if one did not know
that just half an hour before the people with flash lights had
drawn a piece of paper from ‘a lottery bowl’, determining
the exact location of their new house. The following morning
they will receive keys to the newly built homes and are able
to move out from temporary settlements to their permanent homes.
Over two and half years ago these same people were fighting
to survive the biggest natural disaster in the Maldives, watching
their houses being destroyed by masses of water. Now 59 families
are receiving new houses built by the Federation and funded
by the American Red Cross. “We are very satisfied. We
have been waiting but now we can start life again”, says
Shareef Abdullah a fisherman and a father of two young children.
The families who are moving to the new houses are originally
coming from two different islands, Gemendhoo and Vanee. The
Island of Gemendhoo was very badly damaged in the tsunami. Almost
every structure on the island was affected. In one house the
only remaining standing structure was a ground floor toilet.
After the inhabitants of Gemendhoo fled their home island the
island has been uninhabited, just ruins of the houses standing
and vegetation growing where lively streets used to run. Since
the tsunami the Gemendhoo community has been living in the Atoll
capital Kudahuvadhoo, first with host families and later on
in temporary shelters.
One the Gemendhoo community member is Haajara Ali, a mother
of three. She was fishing in the shallow water close to the
beach when she saw a mass of water approaching. At that time
she did not know of a tsunami. Actually, she thought that the
island was sinking. By running to safer grounds and bringing
her grand child to safety she and her family survived the tsunami.
Today she is thanking all the people from Kudahuvadhoo who helped
her family through the devastating days and weeks after the
tsunami and the assistance of the Red Cross in providing her
family a new home.
The time waiting for a new house, living with host family and
in temporary shelter was not always been easy for Hajara Ali.
In the beginning, one house was shared with up to four families
and at times she shared a temporary shelter with almost 20 people.
During the building process of her new home she regularly visited
the building site and was observing the progress. Now, she is
looking into the future with a positive spirit. Curtains for
the new house have already been bought and she is looking forward
to creating friendships with her new neighbors.
The 59 houses handed over in Kudahuvadhoo are a second phase
of the International Federation project which provides permanent
homes to 109 families affected by the tsunami. First 50 houses
were handed over already in December 2006. In addition to the
housing the International Federation is building a sewer system
to the island and has distributed rainwater harvesting tanks
to every household. These projects are undertaken to improve
the access to safe water, to protect the scarce water resources
and to provide sustainable living conditions for the existing
and newly settled communities of Kudahuvadhoo.
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Drawing
a lottery ticket from the lottery bowl. The community
preference was to allocate the houses using a lottery
mechanism. A representative from every household eligible
for a house gets to draw a ticket which indicates the
location of their house. (p16521)
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A
woman holding the keys to her new home. At the handover
ceremony in Kudahuvadhoo people were given keys as well
as an information package for their house. (p16524)
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| Hajara
Ali entering her family’s newly built house for
the first time on the Island of Kudahuvadhoo. (p16522) |
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| A
house destroyed by the tsunami on the Island of Gemendhoo.
The whole island was so badly damaged in the tsunami that
the community moved to the Atoll capital Kudahuvadhoo
where the International Federation has built new homes
with funding from the American Red Cross. (p16523)
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