THE GUJARAT EARTHQUAKE
January 31st 2001,
The numbers of people dead is steadily rising, almost sure to touch six digits.
The real count is not known as a majority of "missing people" are lying under the debris. The major earthquake on Friday 26th Jan had its epicenter in a town called Bhuj in Kutch district in state of Gujarat. Bhuj city and nearby villages, even entire blocks were flattened out. The quake spread over 200 kms radius and stretched to Ahmedabad city. Bhuj is 7 hours by road from Ahmedabad and 15 hrs from Bombay. The earthquake, 8.0 on a richter scale was followed with 188 aftershocks in the next 48 hrs... People have migrated out towns and villages fearing a health epidemic as there is no food, water or shelter.
Bhuj, once a vibrant market town, is now a death trap. It is day 6 and they haven't reached a majority of the 75,000 people who are trapped beneath debris in the inner city. It is a shame that all our country's armed forces (over 20,000 deployed) and all the 21st century global hi technology and communication was of no use to reach and rescue people. Now their survival chances are dim. The state and its people have a tradition of community self-help, and enterprise. Though the response and awareness is higher, than ever, the state is reduced to a state of helplessness in utter shock. Many in the administration themselves are victims.
Several development organizations have swung into action, working quietly. There are several citizen initiatives by NGOs in Ahmedabad and Bhuj with a control room for NGOs, to coordinate work in the field, but the scale of this disaster has thrown everyone off completely.
Expressing our concerns --SPARC and SSP:
We thought until now, that the Latur earthquake in September 1993 was a killer quake. with over 10,000 people dead and 2,00,000 houses damaged across 1300 villages. But after came the Marmara earthquake in Turkey in August 1999. It is heartening to note that Turkish specialist have come here to offer assistance to the victims. This quake of Jan 26th is far more devastating. A complete breakdown in transport both rail and roads, electricity and communications. and multi storied buildings has made rescue even more impossible. Even now, while the cities are being serviced, there has been little or no outreach to the villages. This is of great concern.
While we speak to friends working in the earthquake area, it seems that the need of the hour, is supplies, not volunteers in Bhuj, says Sushma Iyengar, of Nav Nirman Abhiyan ( Umbrella NGO which is working in all control rooms with the collectors in various cities ). Infrastructure for water and sanitation is fragile and over stretched. Skilled health personnel and equipment are needed to save lives. There is a need to find ways to reach out to the rural /and remote villages.
What are we planning and how can we contribute? In this time of crisis, SPARC and SSP join hands. We have a team of engineers and field organizers and over 300 experienced grassroots women's groups who have worked on community-led reconstruction after the Latur earthquake in 1993. Women leaders have already expressed willingness to go to Gujarat. Today, a SSP team will go to make an assessment of shelter needs in rural communities and how we can supplement efforts of organizations. We are exploring immediately with the national, state governments, UNDP on how we can use our experience to work in rebuilding of shelters. We plan to make an offer to do what we know best -- to use "reconstruction process " of houses and public buildings as a means to empower people. Right now, with the enormous destruction, the trauma is very high. To cope with this, combat this, and turn a crisis on its head, the involvement of people -both men and women - is needed. SPARC, NSDF and Mahila Milan have teams from several states who will visit all the towns and cities and locate a role for themselves in cities just as SSP locates a role in rural areas.
First, they need to be helped to walk through --this traumatic period to begin to get involved in relief. We believe, it will help, if they speak to others from Latur, who have gone through this trauma, and maybe, begin to see how they can work together. While we feel certain that the NGOs in the affected areas are working on immediate things, we can help them and the community groups to " walk through" in their minds through the rescue, relief, recovery and rehabilitation processes and accompany them when need be. At each stage, we need to consciously find ways of building capacities of people -in distributing relief, in shifting from community to running their family kitchens, in sending children to school, in assessing needs, organizing groups to provide supplies. Getting people to rally together, we found, helps them to move away from being victims. and from dependency.
In the long run, the manner in which the communities respond to the crisis will act as the basis for building their strengths to address development needs. If people continue to remain shell shocked, plans will be made without consulting people. People need to return to their villages. They need to meet in village forums, do their own assessments and lobby for their needs and services. On our part, SSP and the Sakhi Women's federations from Latur and Osmanabad plan to share our insights and plan to highlight issues around women and disasters, while being part of various actions with groups and NGOs in the affected areas.
In October 2000, leaders and Swayam Shikshan Prayog had gone to visit the women's groups linked to Kutch Mahila Vikas in Bhuj where the earthquake hit on 26th Jan 2001. In the aftermath of the disaster at Bhuj, women leaders from Latur/Osmanabad have been coming in to office , on behalf of the Sakhi federation (which has 15000 women members from 600 self help groups in the two districts) saying they want to go to Gujarat and work.
This is why we feel it will be a unique effort. We have put together a list of things we feel need to be done to pursue a path from disaster to long term development led by communities:
**** RESCUE AND RELIEF
* Channeling aid and relief in a dignified manner to people
* Forming mutual support groups to face trauma
* Assigning volunteers, teachers for referrals
* Temporary care for orphans, others
* Relief camps and nodal centers for coordination with external agencies
* Running community kitchens
**** COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT
* family and housing surveys ,
* assessment of needs by groups-women, children, older people, disabled
* resource mapping by women collectives of essential basic services
**** REBUILDING HOUSES
* rebuilding of safe temporary shelters /houses with local materials, local trained masons
* building demo/ model earthquake safe community structures-schools, community centers, health clinics
**** REBUILDING OURSELVES & ORGANISATIONS
* forming women's self help groups, mobilizing youth groups
* collective income generation efforts, food for work programs
* starting community initiatives --informal education centers for children,
* addressing trauma, psycho social issues with counseling and education
* focusing on primary health and disability -access to services
**** STRENGTHENING LOCAL SELF GOVERNANCE
* information and feedback on what the govt. plans and policies
* lobby for grievance redressal mechanisms
* Dialogue meetings between people and govt.
* creating community mechanisms to channel resources and aid
* community contribution and self help initiatives
* Community planning and monitoring

PUNE TOILETE REVISITED

Background:

We have been working in Pune for many many years. The year of 1999-2000 started a new chapter in our relationship with the municipal corporation. Municipal commissioner Mr Gaikwad invited NGO's to come and work with the municipality to build toilets.
Instead of giving the construction to either to contractors or to Sulabh International which is the usual practice, it was given to all the NGO's who agreed to three conditions:
* First condition was - NGO's must agree to work with communities and get them to accept to manage and maintain the toilets.
* Second was - that the communities take on the responsibility of the contract and execute that work themselves.
* Third - that they do it in a particular time frame

Between November of 1999 and September of 2000 a huge number of toilets were re-constructed after old toilets were demolished.
* Total No of toilet blocks and seats in phase one:
* No of NGOs working on the phase one:
* Toilet Blocks undertaken by SPARC.

Value of the contract to the alliance:
SPARC was one of the NGOs who was invited by the PMC. We took up about 33 toilet blocks. Before that, the Poona MM had only constructed about five to six toilets. That also sporadically and not in collaboration with the municipality. So undertaking this particular project was a huge leap forward in terms of scaling up of those processes To the alliance of SPARC Mahila Milan and National Slum Dweller's Federation this project was one which had both local and national significance.

The local importance was that communities would get toilets that were desperately needed. The women and men trained to design manage and construct toilets would get an opportunity to actually demonstrate their capacities and skills. And this process would strengthen the local federations. The money, which circulated within the communities, would enhance households' present financial position but also increase work opportunities in the future. Such benefits were many more than the ones discussed here.

At a national level, this breakthrough was vital mainly because it was a strategy, which was undertaken locally by a Municipal commissioner without external pressure or financial incentives. He utilized his own resources and available strategy to focus on informal settlements To the national leadership and t various city level federation this pushed up the learning curve about dialogue with corporations managing large projects and delivery within dead lines. Most valuable it was the very nature of the partnership between municipalities and communities that the alliance has been developing and articulating for over a decade. Now we could proceed ahead with doing it and learning more about management and maintenance as well.

The various challenges it represented:
The issue was both to produce the required number of toilet blocks in time And while undertaking this work to ensure new norms of -
* Quality
* Design
* Construction
* Management
* Maintenance

There was an expectations within the alliance that there has to be innovative activities, practices or rituals in each of these areas. And in a sense that particular period fulfilled all those things as far as we were concerned.

Maintaining timings:
The first example was of maintaining timings. So although we would have liked to have community people build all the toilets, we compromised. And wherever community men and women were ready to take on the contracts, we pre-financed them, gave them contracts so that they could do the work. In some instances, women's groups just took up the demolition aspect. In some cases they did material purchases.

In some cases they took up just the basic construction in other cases they did plumbing, or they did some other part. So there were some people who just did one activity and got paid for that. In other cases people took the contract of 8 toilet blocks.

Contractors working with community
And we used our regular contractors in three ways- Contractors got certain toilets to build which communities weren't able to. Either they required more technical input or they were not in the areas where the women were working. Whatever reason. They also were working on the job. Plus they worked along with the community groups to negotiate for materials, things like that. So there was a lot of sharing of ideas and knowledge. It worked both ways.
Because when the contractor had problems dealing with local bullies or with people who were trying to negotiate with some bribes, MM went and negotiated. And where there was a question of getting credit or working on other construction issues contractor helped them.

The role of professionals:
The role of the engineers and Architects was also important. Here we had Purbi Architects and Siddharth Samarth, both of them provided the designs and then Sharad Mahajan and his team provided the technical engineering support to check out all the toilets. Construction-wise there were huge innovations. Design-wise there were also terrific innovation. For instance, now, as a result of our intervention Childrens' Toilets are a norm. Community halls or rooms for the caretakers to stay is a norm. these have become strategies which have gone into the design element. There is no disscussion or debate about it.

Construction quality:
There is no question about the quality of construction. The brick and mortar work has been very good. We realised that there was a problem in allowing individual people to buy wooden doors. We have yet to find doors which can cope with heavy use. So there were some of these sort of purchase flaws or expenses which became obvious to us by the end, but by and large the design element, the construction element was very good.

Participation in dialogue with PMC
The representation of SPARC and MM in the PMC meetings also was done by MM. Although Jockin went to many of the meetings and was there at the policy issue levels the weekly reporting ( which is again an innovation of the Commissioner) where every week they had a short meeting every Wednesday to review the work of this work. The representation was done by MM and the women gained huge confidence in being able to do that.

Management and maintenance of toilets:
The other very interesting issue was when the issue of management and maintenance of the toilets was concerned, initially there was a lot of hesitation. In many places the local communities haven't been able to do it by themselves. But when you networked all the communities together and MM had a city level committee that supervised this process then they were stronger in dealing with local crisis. In a sense that represented the experience of the first phase.

Innovation in Finance:
The other innovation was in finances. 33 toilet blocks meant a project which was about 1.5 to 2 crores of rupees. And the innovations that occurred over here were many fold. One - Municipal Corporation, the commissioner and the engineers worked hand in had so that the inspections were done on time, co-ordination was done on time, money used to be given on time. As a result of which the exposure that we had on advance payment was minimal. Second thing was- because the cash flow was very efficient, the amount of credit that the communities, contractors, everybody got from the market was immense. It helped establish the local contractor, the new contractor and it allowed us to do work much faster. That itself was a very important part of the scaling up process.

Mr Gaikwad sets Targets for Dec00 and Jan 2001:
In November of 2000 Mr Gaikwad wanted another 150 toilet blocks. He asked SPARC to do about 80. I think it will end up about 70. So between December and January, in 2 months we will construct 70 toilets. It's a very interesting jump from being very stretched to do 33 toilet blocks in 7 to 8 months and then to do 80 in two months!

THE GROUNDSWELL VISIT

----- Original Message -----
From: Toby Blume <toby@home-all.org.uk>
To: Sheela Patel <mithila@bom3.vsnl.net.in>; nsdf <arcbyc@vsnl.com>; Celine
D'Cruz <celine@bom7.vsnl.net.in>
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 9:06 PM
Subject: Thanks for everything

> Hi all
> i just wanted to drop you a quick note to say thank you so much for your
> hospitality, help and kindness during our recent visit. We managed to
> get back safely (although a couple of people were pretty ill on the
> plane back) and i can say that everyone found it an amazing experience.
>
> Personally i've come back hugely energized, enthusiastic and clear in my
> own mind about our purpose and direction. i was clear before, but now i
> think i didn't really understand anything. we're off and running!!!!
>
> i'm incredibly enthusiastic about exchanges (now that i feel i really
> understand how they work - having 'done' and not just talked!). we've
> all learned so much from the visit, and i hope we were able to leave
> something of ourselves with you and the many wonderful poeple we met
> whilst we were there.
>
> i am struggling (happily) with the process of 'unpacking' everything
> we've seen and applying it to our work here. Ruth's coming in tomorrow
> to talk which will be nice.
>
> i said i would write something for your website, which i'll get to you
> as soon as i can (i haven't forgotten!).
>
> until we meet again
>
> with love and solidarity
>
> toby
>
>> --
> Toby Blume
>
> **Direct Line** 020 7713 2879
>
> Groundswell
> National Homeless Alliance
> 5-15 Cromer Street
> London WC1H 8LS
> Tel 020 7713 2880
> Fax 020 7713 2848
> Email toby@home-all.org.uk
> http://www.oneworld.org/groundswell/
>
> Cooking Up Change in a place near you

TOILETS IN BOMBAY - PREPARATION AND INAUGARATION, 26th Jan 2001
Early in the morning most of us started the day wondering if there was an earthquake when the ground swayed under our feet. But everyone in the federation quickly ran out of their homes to attend the first of the 101 toilet blocks identified for the toilet construction project. Some already know that the alliance of SPARC Mahila Milan and NSDF have been awarded the contract to construct 320 toilet blocks in 20 wards of the city of Mumbai.

26th January is a very special day for all Indians, it is our Republic Day and most communities hoist the flag and talk about themselves as citizens of India. NSDF has made this 26th Jan a republic day to celebrate universal sanitation! Jockin has spearheaded a team of NSDF and Mahila Milan volunteers who have spent this whole month developing a very close association with Mr Achrekar ( who heads this Mumbai Municipal Corporation team on slum sanitation) and his team, Members of Parliament, Ministers in the Maharashtra cabinet. Legislative assembly members and Corporators of the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai to agree to make slum sanitation the main agenda for this year in the city.

So starting from 8am that day to late in the evening, there were ground breaking ceremonies in all the settlements in which there was a start off by communities to form an association and invite BMC and the alliances of SPARC Mahila Milan and NSDF to work on sanitation. By 31st January 101 toilet blocks will be identified.

BSDP MUNICIPAL STAFF VISIT PUNE
In This last week of January 01, all the municipal Corporation staff and many corporators are travelling to Pune. Having inquired why SPARC should be given the contract, the most useful experience to demonstrate that such a process has potential for scaling up emerges from the work that has taken place and is on going in Pune. This is a city 4 hours away by train from Mumbai, and where the alliance along with other NGOs is engaged in construction community toilets so that Pune has universal sanitation for slums. That project is also 44 crores, only it is not from a World Bank aided project, and initiated by the local Municipal Corporation. It emerges from a innovative mix of state central and municipal contribution which pays for the capital costs of construction. Into which communities make a invaluable contribution. Firstly they have agreed to take care of the maintenance, which reduced the recurring expenses that Municipal Corporation has to budget for, their involvement ensures good quality construction, and when communities and NGOs construct toilets the costs are much reduced.

The Municipal Corporation departmental staff visits are to understand how relationship changes can transform programs. They will meet community groups and community-contracting groups to look at what they do, they will meet SPARC and appointed professional support teams. These professionals help managing interface needed for technical support, and they will meat with their counterparts in the Municipal Corporation of Pune and look at how they have redeveloped their processes to work with communities. The challenge is to help ensure a steep the learning curve of the staff of Municipal Corporation of Mumbai as the goal is to start with the construction of 100 toilets in Feb 2001.

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