The area was suffering from poor drainage, poor waste man-agement, poor housing construc-tion and poor infrastructure. All these aspects made the population vulnerable to flooding, the effects of hurricanes, outbreaks of disease and earthquake risks.
PASSA raised understanding of how risks to health and safety were caused not only by natural disasters but also by the everyday practices of the community.
Poor waste management and lack of upkeep of the canal lead to serious blockages and subsequent flooding of low-lying houses with waste and sewage.
To mitigate against these problems the PASSA process helped participants to identify simple actions that they could conduct.
These included improved construc-tion and environmental manage-ment, and how to prepare, plan and respond to a natural disaster.
Technical solutions
When provided with the materials and technical support necessary to carry out the recon-struction the PASSA process had ensured that the community was highly motivated.
At the end of 2012, Haiti had no official building codes and material standards were not enforced.
The general level of understand-ing by architects and builders of seismic construction techniques was limited. A great deal of time was spent with engineers, seismic specialists and construction profes-sionals to ensure that the shelter solutions were safe and that the community understood the reason behind the application of new tech-niques.
This knowledge was trans-ferred outside of the participatory planning sessions, delivered instead through on-site practical training sessions.
Both the market (left) and the path (right) were identified needs and both were built by residents with the support of the organisation.
Photo: Amelia Rule
Shelter Projects 2011–2012 A.13 Natural Disaster
“PASSA helped us to see that many problems in our area are not complicated to fix, they are small things that can have a large negative impact – such as the rubbish blocking the canal and causing flooding.”
PASSA participant Delmas 19
Defining the community:
In this complex urban context, the community was defined by: housing typologies, level of poverty, physical boundaries of roads (making the area a pedestrian community), a representative committee and the familial and neighbourly networks that were already in place.
Participatory Approach for Safe Shelter Awareness (PASSA) is a participatory method of disaster risk reduction (DRR) related to shelter safety. It is a variation of Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Trans-formation (PHAST), which has been used by many Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies in water and sanitation programmes since the late 1990s.
The aim of PASSA is to develop local capacity to reduce shelter related risk by raising awareness and developing skills in joint analysis, learning and decision-making at community level.
PASSA is a process, facilitated by volunteers, that guides community groups (called PASSA groups in this manual) through eight participa-tory activities which enable the participants to do the following pro-gressively:
Develop their awareness of shelter safety issues in their community
Identify hazards and vulnerabilities that create risk related to shelter
Recognize and analyse causes of shelter vulnerability ÌÌIdentify and prioritize potential strategies to improve shelter safety
Make a plan to put those shelter safety strategies into place, based on local capacities
Monitor and evaluate progress.
Source PASSA, Participatory Approach for Safe Shelter Awareness, IFRC 2011
Conflict / Complex A.14
– Project completed – Housing payments
completed – Housing repairs
completed – Investigations of
housing completed
– Applications closed – Assessments
com-plete
– Pilot project com-plete
– Project start date
– Tsunami – Earthquake
Update:
A.14 Japan – 2011 – Earthquake and Tsunami
Strengths and weaknesses
9 The project hired architectural specialists to provide advice to rebuild durable housing.
9 Affected people were supported to return to their original homes, and to reintegrate with their community.This helped to improve security in the area.
9 Local construction firms used local labour and more environmentally sustainable resources.
9 Houses of both evacuated and non-evacuated people were rebuilt.
9 The project's focus on preserving parts of the old town helped to give a feeling of continuity to the community.
9 By coordinating with other organisations, the project was part of a sustainable, sector-wide response. At
the same time the affected people were thouroughly consulted to gather information and understand needs.
8 By supporting rebuilding in potentially hazardous areas, there was the possibility that people could be re-exposed to future disasters.
8 A limited number of households were supported as a result of the high cost per family (a result of Japanese materials prices and culture).
8 The financial aid was only for repair and was not for the construction of new houses.
8 Only families who had reached a certain stage in their recovery could benefit from the repair project.
- Vulnerable households were prioritized, including those made up of only elderly people or those with very low incomes.
Project description
This project provided cash assistance to repair 150 houses after the tsunami in Japan. It was mainly targeted at families unable to apply for the government’s Emergency Repair Aid and for those who required further assistance on top of the government’s aid package. The project provided an information and support centre with outreach to support 1155 households. This service provided information to those who had difficulty in accessing other sources of information, primarily the elderly or people living alone.
Keywords: Urban neighbourhoods, Housing repair and retrofitting, Cash, Structural assessment.
Country:
Japan
Project location:
Ofunato, Iwate Disaster:
Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster date:
11th March, 2011
Number of people displaced:
390,000 houses total 5,500 houses in Ofunato Project outputs:
150 houses repaired Advice provided to 1,155 households
Occupancy rate on handover:
Unknown Shelter size:
Variable
Materials cost per shelter:
Up to US$ 5,600
21 months –
19 months –
11 months–
8 months –
6 months –
3 months –
11 March 2011 – Project timeline
Ofunato Japan
Shelter Projects 2011–2012
Conflict / Complex A.14