Earthquake Relief
Housing

You Can Make A Difference, But Together We Can Make A Change

Kala Raksha's simple, direct rehabilitation efforts have thankfully proved to be successful. On faith, bolstered by what we had collected in our Stone Soup project, we began construction in Jatwali Sumrasar. This is a village of about 950 people, all Garasia Jat, an Islamic pastoralist community. Garasia means landholder, and this group of Jats, in addition to herding cattle, have for generations also held land. Today they do some dry (rain dependent) farming but the men mostly depend on manual labor for income.

Garasia Jat women have always embroidered for their own use. Since 1998 the women of Jatwali Sumrasar have worked with Kala Raksha to earn a living from their art. Today they are one of our highest earning groups. Fortunately for us there is a quarry nearby and a number of men from Jatwali Sumrasar know stone cutting. We trained others in earthquake safe construction methods and have been able to manage construction completely with the labor of village men themselves. Soon after we began the foundations for the first 51 homes, funding from American India Foundation and Dastkar was sanctioned. Today we have 85 homes in various states of construction. A total of 126 homes, one for each family, are planned.

We expect to receive the major funding we need for 75% of the cost of the remaining 41 homes soon. The unique feature of the homes, aside from being earthquake safe, is a vaulted fero cement roof. The first six homes have reached the roof stage and a ferocement expert has been brought from outside Kutch to train the village men in fero techniques.

In Jatwali as the mesh is applied to the first sample home, Architect Rajni Patwa instructs coordinators and workers. Mr. Patwa then addresses a group of village elders about the construction. In Jatwali, reinforced concrete coping is laid. Three bands using iron and RCC give added strength to resist earthquake damage. In addition to the permanent homes Kala Raksha is constructing in Jatwali Sumrasar, temporary homes have also been built by another NGO. Intended as shelter only until permanent homes can be built, these consist of a low wall of stones loosely cemented, and a bamboo roof with clay tiles.

On one early trip to Jatwali Sumrasar I was dismayed to find that these temporary structures were being turned into "permanent" homes! This, of course, is one major argument agains temporary homes. With the reasoning that two homes are better than one, people have been dismantling their destroyed homes, adding these raw stones to increase the height of the temporary homes, and plastering a thin layer of cement over the whole thing- a typical village construction known as "random rubble," most examples of which toppled during the earthquake.

Our coordinator himself had made his temporary structure permanent. I asked him what he was doing, didn't he know this was not going to hold up in an earthquake?! He laughed. "I'm not going to sleep there!" he said. I asked why he thought an earthquake would happen at night? "Well, we can run out during the day," he said. I asked if he hadn't just had an experience that showed how much time one has in an earthquake? He laughed again. I tried another tack. What is the difference between this Kala Raksha home and that one? A lot, he answered. Like? Well, this one won't fall down in an earthquake. Why not? Oh, because it has iron reinforcements. So? These tie the structure together. OK. What else? Oh, it also has bands of reinforced concrete coping. So? If the structure cracks, the cracks stop there. Good. What else? Well, there is the ferocement roof. So? It is light, and there is nothing to fall down and hit us. Right.

So, the question of education suddenly becomes clear. It is one thing to educate people, but the more important need is to teach them to transfer and apply what they learn. We realize that this has to have a priority in successful development projects. Now the question will be, what to do about these permanent temporary structures? We have decided to focus even more effort on Jatwali Sumrasar to try and make it a model village, in infrastructure as well as superstructure.

Please contact us for more information

Please use the links below to learn more about our projects and how you can help!