Support for Decent Poor in Kathmandu
16 poorest of the poor families from Kathmandu, Thecho, Thankot and Khokhana were provided support for the construction/renovation of their houses through SELAVIP Decent Poor Housing Project 2014 under ACCA (Asian Coalition for Community Action) program on July 10, 2014 Thursday in Kathmandu. The project is under implementation in initiation of LUMANTI Support Group for Shelter with support from Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) in partnership with Community Women Forum (CWF). The project is targeted to cover total of 31 poorest of the poor families from 5 cities in Nepal including 15 families from Kalaiya.
Speaking on the program jointly organized by LUMANTI and CWF to announce the 16 decent poor families in Kathmandu, President of LUMANTI Prafulla Man Singh Pradhan said, everyone wishes for long life and to retain the long life regular care is essential. Same thing applies in case of the house we are living in. To retain our house for long period, it needs to be renovated. Talking about the housing grant for the poorest of the poor families he said, this grant can be considered as the medium to reduce our worries and save our investment that we have done for the construction of our houses. Thus this project need to be replicated to parts of the country as well and he urged for the prime role of the women cooperatives for the same.
Speaking on the occasion, Executive Director of LUMANTI Lajana Manandhar highlighted the essentiality of decent home for decent living condition. She said, without the secure home to live in, it is extremely hard to think of other stuff to move ahead in our life. Thus, LUMANTI has been implementing its various activities and projects focusing for secure shelter since more than 20 years. She added, LUMANTI always stands against forced eviction. No one should be evicted without giving alternative solution to live in, she stressed. She also talked about the model rental housing program in Dhobighat which is targeted for low income rental families in Kathmandu. Talking about the support for low income families to upgrade their living condition, she said, LUMANTI in partnership with women cooperatives and its network Community Women Forum, has been providing easy loan support to low income needy families for various activities like housing, WASH, income generation etc. On her remarks, explaining about the SELAVIP Decent Poor Housing Project 2014, she said, this project is supported by Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) and is implemented in 15-20 countries including Nepal. Talking about the process of identification of the needy families, she said, the women cooperative which belong to the community itself with in-depth survey and household visit, has identified the genuine 16 needy families from Kathmandu valley to provide the support. She added, the support amounting to rupees thirty thousand for each household, though, it is not enough for building the house, will definitely help to reduce the financial burden of the family who have not being able to think of constructing their house, provided they might need to arrange additional resources for the complete construction. She also appreciated the support from the local government (VDCs) through local women cooperatives and urged for more support for those poorest of the poor families who hardly can have access to credit due to their low economic condition. Concluding her remarks she also suggested to consult for technical support with LUMANTI and CWF while constructing the house.
The secretary of Khokana VDC Nagendra Poudel and representative of Thecho VDC Chitra Dhoj Poudel also appreciated the initiation taken by LUMANTI and CWF to support the poorest of the poor families and expressed their commitment to support such families in every possible way.
Delivering her remarks on the program, Bindu Shrestha expressed her happiness for being a part of the project as a partner organization. She said, CWF has been doing lots of activities for upgrading the lives of urban poor people of Kathmandu through loan support but this support for poorest of the poor families as a grant, what we are doing now, is very new for us. This grant support is not possible with the single effort from CWF. This grant would not have been possible without the support from Lumanti, she added.
President of Prerana Women Cooperative Sudarshana Darshandhari and Pancha Laxmi Maharjan from Khokana Women Cooperative highlighted the pathetic condition of the poor families living in Kathmandu. Sharing her experience of community visit to identify the needy families they said, people thinks that Kathmanduties are rich enough but actually while we see in the core area of Kathmandu, while we talked about families who have been staying here since generations, the situation is different, it is really disappointing. They are living in the pathetic condition sharing rooms with family members very uncomfortably. She further added, some families are living with wrecked roof with plastic shade and they don't have enough fund to renovate it. Some families have only one room where they need to manage everything - the kitchen is at one corner and the corner is occupied by the bed and the next corner as living room. In case of the joint family, they are compelled to live with partition. They added, despite the desire to support such groups, the cooperatives are not being able to address the problem of the poorest of the poor families who cannot take loan due to their low economic condition. This project with support from ACHR through LUMANTI is highly recommendable as it has covered such families. On their remarks, they also urged the support from the VDCs for such families.
Since 2012, 40 poorest of poor families in Bharatpur, Birgunj, Kaliaya, Ratnanagar and Dharan were part of the Decent Poor Programme. ACCA was implemented in all these cities and both the programs complemented each other. Decent poor fund, this year, is planned for 5 cities in Nepal including Kathmandu, Thecho, Thankot and Khokhana.
The program will aim to strengthen the community process and build solidarity among the community members. These families are selected by their fellow community members based on the criteria developed by the city level committee. The community members will be providing assistance to these families during the construction of the houses. Labour needed for the construction will be provided by them. The selected families are very much part of the saving activities and do regular saving. The community-led cooperative in each of the city will mobilize the saving groups to support the families repair the houses in terms of technical support or financial assistant.
The technical team from Lumanti will visit the families with the committee members and sit with them to identify their requirement in terms of repair of the houses. They will assist the families to prepare the drawings, design estimates needed for the proposed work. The team will support the families during the construction phase as well.
The CWF and respective women cooperative will be responsible for managing the fund with the community members in the lead role. The community members will assist these families to either repair, renovate, construct or repay loans for housing construction depending on the requirement of the households.