Case Study Concern

8/4/2019 Case Study Concern

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http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/case-study-concern 2/6Commitment to humanitarian challenges

livestock, destruction of standing crops and farm lands, roads and communication

infrastructure, etc. According to the government estimates, there were 3 million

people affected by these floods in 7,000 villages.

The programme was designed, bearing in mind the community needs, the local

conditions and the responses of other agencies working in the area.

Concern, with its local partners, implemented relief programme in close

collaboration with the state unit of Indian Red Cross and the district administration in

Sambalpur and Kendrapara. Both these organisations carried out assessments in the

flood affected areas. These organisations used Concern's rapid assessment form to

ascertain the severity of the situation and identify those areas most in need of

assistance.

Concern's response to the floods was based on the findings of the assessment in the

first few days after the floods. These assessments also included the information from

various sources. In addition, immediately after the flooding started, Concerncarried out an assessment. The information from this assessment was

shared with other organisations as well as the government.

Some of the findings of this assessment is given below:

Assessment :

Number of Districts affected 23

Number of Blocks affected 128

Number of Gram Panchayats affected 1,484

Number of Villages affected 6,846

Municipalities/Notified Area Councils affected 24

Number of Wards affected 184Population affected 3,000,000

Total number of houses damaged 144,716

Crop area affected 477,570 hectares

The response strategy was designed to meet the priority needs of severely affected

people as quickly as possible. The government response was relatively good focussing

on providing food, medicines, drinking water, etc.. The shelter need was not

prioritised to a large extent. With the flood waters taking a relatively long time to

recede and shelter needs not adequately addressed, the duration of the emergency

was extended. Therefore, shelter material (tarpaulin) supply was considered crucial

to help people get through the period of being displaced or marooned, until theywere able to resume their normal lives. The second most important challenge was to

provide employment opportunities for the flood victims, thereby enabling them to

earn their food with dignity. Thus Food and Shelter were the focus of emergency

response.

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Targeting

Concern India's strategy with the first

distributions after an emergency is to

target entire villages that have been

severely affected. This is done to

expedite the relief delivery. Hence, for

the general distribution, the followingcriteria were applied:

� villages that were submerged

� all or some villagers displaced

� villages cut off from the outside

world

� considerable damage to houses, property and crops

� high proportion of vulnerable groups amongst population

While selecting the areas, first the most severely affected blocks were prioritised.

After this, the most severely affected Gram Panchayats within those blocks and thenvillages within those GPs were selected. Efforts were made to avoid duplication with

other agencies through co-ordination at each administrative level.

Temporary Shelter

Transportation

As there was no access roads to many of

the affected villages, relief materials

were moved to centrally located points in

the midst of clusters of villages where

access was possible and suitable storagefacilities were available. The partners, in

consultation with the village committees

as well as the government bodies,

selected these distribution sites. District

and block authorities were informed

about the storage and distribution

locations. Distributions were delayed for

in a few cases as the rains continued

further.

Distribution

In order to ensure that relief items

reached the most vulnerable flood

Bimala's nightmare is the thought of

another spell of heavy rains, which sheis praying God not to show in the near

future. She is one of the worst affected

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affected communities / families, the

partners carried out surveys at the

village-level and organised community

meetings to identify the most vulnerable

families. This list was verified at the GP-

and block-levels to ensure adherence to

the selection criteria. Once the

beneficiary list was finalised, tokens

were issued to the selected families for

identification during distribution.

Village leaders, Indian Red Cross

Volunteers, PRI members and SHGs were

involved in the process along with the

partners.

in her locality as she has a mud house

to live in with her 7 members' family.

Her house had two small rooms but the

major part is collapsed due to the

flash floods in Sambalpur.Her

household materials got damaged &

she had to take shelter in a schoolbuilding where her family was

provided with cooked food for three

days. She was worried as to how her

house could be repaired & her family

could get a safe shelter as before.A polythene sheet may be a very small

support to the suffering of Bimala's

family, but for her staying together

under the sheet is more consoling than

being dispersed elsewhere. “I will use

the polythene sheet for roofing, atleast now I can leave my children in

my courtyard when I go for livelihood”

says Bimala when she receives the

polythene sheet from the volunteers

in the distribution point.

Monitoring

The partners and Concern staffs carried

out monitoring of activities on a regular

basis. Concern staff carried out spot

checks at the distribution sites in order

to ensure that the correct families were

being targeted and received the

proposed items of the right quantity and

quality. Distribution reports were

submitted by the partners to Concern on a daily basis upon completion of the

distribution for the day. Concern and the partners also met regularly to review the

progress, share and discuss issues and plan for the next day.

The second critical support that Concern provided to the flood victims was the

opportunity to work. This project targeted people whose livelihoods had been

severely affected by the series of floods that crippled a number of districts of Orissa

during July, August and September 2006.

Under the cash-for-work (CFW) activity, each of the selected families was to be

provided with 20 days of wage employment to it to meet the cash requirements of

the household. The activities taken up under CFW included, cleaning of village

ponds, repair of village approach roads, strengthening of field bunds, digging of newponds, repair of damaged houses and crop land reclamation.

LIVELIHOOD RESTORATION : DIGNITY IN EMERGENCY

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Along with the cash for work,

additional farm inputs were

provisioned after the initial

assessment with the target

beneficiaries. These input were

vegetable seeds for nutrition

supplement and income, pulses

f o r c a s h i n c o m e a n d

consumption, paddy seeds for

cultivation, etc. These inputs

support the target families to

restore their livelihood.

HOW MUCH WE TRAVELLED

WITH SPHERE:

While addressing the emergencyresponse, Concern tried tocomply with some of the core “process” standards defined in theSPHERE guidelines as minimumstandards. These are mentionedbelow

A d h e r e n c e t o M i n i m u mStandards:

� Initial Assessment:Initial assessment format of Concern was appreciated andused by government agencies andIndia Red Cross.In concertedly assessing thefloods with the Indian Red Crossand disseminating the resultsamong other agencies, includingthe government. This ensuredthat the relief process adoptedadhered to the minimumstandards from the outset.

� Participation:Implementing partners ensuredthat at every stage of programimplementation, community

Story of Sushama: Those without

assets become the greatest losers

Sushama cannot read and write. She who

supports her family comprising her ailing

husband and children. She is the lone bread-

earner, earns income as an agricultural

labourer. She just lost any avenue for income as

the farmers lost their crops twice in the spate

of the floods of 2006.

“I was worried and desperate to feed myfamily. How can I think about my husband's

treatment when my little children are

starving?” she asks. The floods only added to

her woes.

The cash-for-work intervention from Concern

was a timely help. It came after days of hunger

and unemployment… and hope. It gave her the

much needed financial support. More

importantly, it gave her a dignified way to

support herself and her family it gave her workwhich earned her money.

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m e m b e r s , e l e c t e drepresentatives and villagelevel institutions like VDC andSHGs were involved. Partnersconducted village meeting toel ic it the view of thecommunity members on the

l o c a l n e e d a n d t h ea p p r o p r i a t e n e s s o f intervention. As the entirevillage was being targeted forre l ief d i st r ibut ion, therepresentation of all groups inthe community was alsoensured. Community-levelwork like repair of approachroads, digging of ponds, etc.were decided by the targetcommunity members. This led

Asked by the aid worker about what she lost inthe recent floods, she replies “ I am a poorlandless woman. I have a thatched house whichis partially damaged. I cannot say I have losthuge property. I am affected as I did not getwage after the flood which caused heavydamage to the agriculture in the area. But when

I could not feed my children properly as therewas no work, I had lost all my hope to earnbread for my family, I had lost confidence forsurvival, had lost faith on humanity.

But the cash for work of Concern was a greatsolace to her. As she waits for her wagepayment, she says, “Now my children wait for

thme because they know I get money every 5 dayof my work here and I buy something for them.My husband is also happy”.

to a strong impact at the end of the project, where community members owned thework as their own creation.

Women members were encouraged to participate in cash-for-work activities. Thiscontributed significantly in promoting a sense of pride among the women members,as they received wages equal to their male counterparts'. Muster rolls, to record thework-days, were maintained by the villagers themselves. This worked as an effectivetool to bring about transparency in operation.

� Targeting:Concern has adopted targeting criteria to identify the most vulnerable communities

in the flood prone district and block. This was done systematically to reach out to theun-served and avoid duplication in intervention.

� Evaluation:Concern conducted a joint evaluation by IAG ( Inter-Agency Group) to promote cross-learning from its own operations among relief agencies. This IAG is a coordinatingforum of all the international and national development agencies working onemergency response in Orissa. This process of inviting other agencies into theevaluation of Concern-supported project exhibited a high degree of impartiality indata collection, which is a key aspect in SPHERE' s common standard for evaluation.

Further, the approach of identifying the potential of the victims to rebuild their

community with their own effort, and at the same time earn their food with dignityconfirms to the fundamental principle of “ right to life with dignity”, as defined inthe Humanitarian Charter in SPHERE.

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Case Study Concern