We started our day pretty early, 6.30am. We were all ready and excited at the same time about travelling to the most affect district and better understand the needs of persons living with disabilities. Planning and organizing the trip was not an easy task. Initially the visit was supposed to be organized on Wednesday and Thursday but we were forced to postpone it in order to ensure a meeting with the Chief District Officer, CDO, the highest representative of the government in Nepal.
We are again partnering with the Bright Stars Society and Gwahali in this venture. Here it is the “plan”:
The 3 organizations will work with the Patan Engineering Campus to bring the construction material and technology to build emergency shelters to our target groups, 23 persons living with disabilities and their families. The shelters are easy to build, cost effective and resistant and fit well with the local context.
Gwahali will also advance the money for the construction while ENGAGE is taking care in covering all the costs related to the logistics (transportation, accommodation, food and other costs). ENGAGE decided to go for this option because the Government has already announced the provision of financial resources for all the persons who lost their houses. In each community we visited we explained to all our friends about the importance of getting what is due from the government. If the government promised to give cash or in kind relief to all victims of the quakes, then these citizens, especially those in vulnerable status, should exercise their rights and we should help doing that. This is something very important for ENGAGE.
For this reason, ENGAGE and its partners organizations will work hard not only to get the best shelter related technology but also work hard for persons living with disabilities to get the help from the government.
For the day, we had a very dense and busy schedule ahead. Meeting with 23 persons scattered in different localities of the district. Unfortunately some of them were unreachable as the road was closed due to some landslide. Yet we were determined to meet at any cost each of the persons we were supposed to meet.
The first stop was Chautara, the district headquarter. We saw many houses and buildings destroyed by the quakes. We noticed how the biggest relief organizations had set up an emergency hub there with offices hosted in mega tents. The meeting with the CDO was very positive. We explained our aim and we also gave him a letter with the details of our intended action. We pleaded for his personal involvement to help persons living with disabilities within the district to get the due support at the earnest. It was a short and positive meeting and the CDO kindly agreed on the importance of prioritizing persons living with disabilities in the post earthquake assistance.
We left the CDO office with a strong endorsement. We were now ready to meet our target group. We travelled all the day and we went to SANGACHOCK VDC where we meet a young girl called Sumitra who till few years ago was totally blind. She was very lucky in getting a full eye transplant but still she was living with her family in a vulnerable situation. We also met one of her friend whose father had a physical disability. Both families were hosted by some of their neighbors having lost their houses. The place was in the forest but close enough to a local river. A wonderful place in normal time we would say.
The last visit of the day was to Kalika VDC, a pretty remote locality. We were bit worried that our microbus could not make it along the bumpy and steep road. Moreover it was already running late and we were not sure how long it would have taken to reach destination. Yet we had a friend waiting for us on that day and we could not fail. At the end it did not take that long but the road was quite scary. Kalika VDC is up the mountain and all the buildings of the area within the VDC were totally wiped out, destroyed. Despite this, we did not find despair but resilience and willingness to start again from scratch. Our beneficiary, Mr. Rai has lost his wife when their house collapsed. Mr. Rai is visually impaired and he is currently helped by local community. He is in need of help of course but we cannot even remotely imagine his personal devastation. Fortunately his child is still alive and did not get hurt during the quakes.
We had a long talk with also the community members to better understand the situation there. We discussed about the importance to get the assistance promised by the Government. The remains of Mr. Rai’s house needs to be totally demolished and it will be a bit hard as some of the walls still pending are in concrete. We will figure out what to do in this particular case.
It was a long and tough day and we are ready to reach our “resort”. After almost an hour, here we are. We believe we are the first guests after the quakes. The rooms are dirty and with lots of cracks but at the end it is not that bad. We adjusted easily. After a bit of rest all the team members met for dinner. It was not that bad. We chatted a bit but then tiredness prevailed. We had to get ready for the second day.
To be continued….
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