57,000 earthquake-affected people will be able to complete their intermediate shelters and protect themselves from the monsoons.
“I have never been happier at getting an SMS before. I got a message in my cell phone yesterday saying that I would get additional 10,000 rupees I can now complete my shelter with that money before the monsoon”, says 55 year old Ramdebi Tamang from Changu ,Bhaktapur.
Cash, giving dignified choice to people
Tamang is one of the 515 beneficiaries who received 10,000 rupees from DCA as a top up to complete their intermediate shelter. With our last distribution in Bhaktapur on 3rd August 2015, DCA provided cash to 10,451 households that were affected by the earthquake that hit Nepal on April 25th 2015. This means that 57,480 people will be able to make a temporary shelter and save themselves from the monsoon rains.
After several discussions with government and other like-minded agencies working on the ground, shelter was identified as the key priority for the people. Since the markets were functioning post earthquake, DanchurchAid along with its partner agencies ECO Nepal, FSCN and FAYA Nepal started distributing cash in Gorkha ,Dhading,Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts of Nepal in coordination with the government agencies for helping people build temporary shelters. Giving out cash was to give people a dignified choice to buy what was most important for them and to revive the local economy. In Gorkha, DCA handed out 15,000 rupees for building temporary shelters while in Dhading, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur DCA gave out 10,000 rupees as a top up.
Use of technology to distribute money
Besides responding immediately to the humanitarian crisis on ground, time that DanChurchAid introduced the use of mobile phones in distributing cash to earthquake affected victims in Nepal. The beneficiary list was provided by the government and people were sent an SMS telling them about the cash distribution. They also received a unique code that they had to present while collecting the cash. All they had to do was to get this unique code and mobile message at the distribution point and receive the money. The cash distribution points were also set up close to the affected villages to help people from travelling too much to get the money.DCA and its partners had tied up with a local agency called Hello Paisa for this mobile based cash distribution system.
“While addressing the needs of the community, we also wanted to make the best use of technology to make the distribution efficient. We are proud to be the first agency in Nepal to do cash transfers through mobile phone technology. This makes distribution more efficient and monitoring easier and transparent”, says Andrew Pearlman-Team Leader, Earthquake Emergency Project. Several other agencies are using this technology after learning from our success.
What next?
It’s been three months since the earthquake. DCA has been on the ground right from the beginning providing affected people with food baskets, drinking water, emergency latrines, hygiene kits, psychosocial counseling, temporary shelter and cash. While people has shown immense resilience in coping with the disaster, there is still a lot that needs to be done to recover from this mega disaster. In the coming days, DCA will continue its support and help the affected communities in building more permanent shelters and latrines, repair broken water tanks and build taps, provide counseling to help people cope with the stress of the earthquake and train them on vocational skills like carpentry, and mason training among others to help them secure their livelihoods.