Submitted by crinadmin on
[10 August 2007] - The publication documents the shelter construction process in Ampara district, Sri Lanka, following the tsunami. Under this project, the first 100 houses were declared by UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) to be the best among the thirty kinds of transitional shelter constructed in Ampara district. Save the Children’s shelters met international criteria for disaster relief housing; they were clearly favoured by displaced families and they cost less than comparable solutions. This success was due to the simple strategy of consulting with the people they were housing and including them in the building process. The documentation pays particular attention to the community consultations that were part of this reconstruction process and the impact it had on the children and their families. This documentation is an important contribution to the development of Save the Children's understanding of and expertise on the impact of the immediate living environment on the protection and care of children in emergencies and the importance of involving children and their families as experts on their own needs and local reality in a reconstruction process. Although the publication is specific to a time and situation, the findings of this report remain relevant for our post disaster responses. The soft copy of the report is attached. To order a hard copy, write to: Maleec Calyanaratne ([email protected]) and Saro Wimalaratne ([email protected]) The publication is free of cost. Kindly pay for postage.