Full Coverage: Shelter & Housing

05/07/2008 Five days after Cyclone Nargis hit parts of Myanmar, international aid has begun to arrive. Latest estimates claim over 22,000 people have perished and twice as many gone missing, leaving a million people homeless. The Irrawaddy delta still remains cut off from the world.

05/07/2008 Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked.
From: The Independent

05/05/2008 As of Monday Morning, almost 4,000 people are believed to have died -- and tens of thousands more were forced to flee their homes -- as Cyclone Nargis hit Burma this weekend. A thorough damage assessment will be difficult, notes the United Nations.

04/08/2008 Tiada hari tanpa penggusuran di Jakarta. Di tanah si Pitung ini kebanyakan berisi cerita duka tentang jutaan keluarga yang kehilangan tempat tinggalnya, ruang usahanya, termasuk warisan budaya. Catatan akhir tahun LBH Jakarta tahun 2007 menunjukkan penggusuran naik dari 9 kasus gusuran sepanjang 2006 menjadi 10 kasus gusuran di tahun 2007. Sementara, jumlah korban gusuran meningkat pesat dari tahun 2006 sebanyak 1.883 KK menjadi 5.935 kk tergusur.

04/02/2008 Social stigmas attached to leprosy continue unabated in India, home to over 50% of the world's leprosy patients. Ostracised by society and lacking government support, it is ghettos like the Village of Hope in Delhi that offer shelter, companionship and dignity to those afflicted by the disease, writes Aditi Rao.

03/13/2008 The Borderless World Foundation, a Pune-based NGO, has a mission to provide shelter for young girls orphaned by violence in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In these baseras or homes, they find much-needed affection and care, which they have been bereft of.

02/20/2008 Even after three months of Cyclone Sidr hitting Bangladesh, some 1.3 million affected people are living under plastic sheeting, tarpaulins and other basic shelters exposing them to the approaching monsoon rains. Oxfam says that it is vital that the government and the international community urgently devise a better plan.

02/04/2008 With global urban population expecting to rise to over five billion by 2025, there is a need to evolve sustainable urbanisation processes, says architect Dr. Nizamuddin Ahmed. In his vivid description of the city of Dhaka, he speaks of using architecture beyond the purely commercial to create better living environments.

01/29/2008 Street names and buildings in India once linked people to their local culture, geography and livelihoods. To deal with this loss of identity and regain the richness of its architectural landscape, India needs to research and document traditional houses in villages and old towns, writes architectural consultant Kiran Keswani.

01/14/2008 The Harry Chapin Media Awards were created in 1982 to encourage the media to tell stories of hunger and poverty. These global awards recognise work on causes of economic poverty and forces leading to self-reliance of poor. The current deadline for submitting entries is February 1, 2008.

01/10/2008 While the Bangladesh cyclone claimed thousands of lives and left millions homeless, there remain large parts of the population who have gone missing. Bangladesh Red Crescent is now working on a database of those missing, mostly women and children, to help link them up with their loved ones.

12/21/2007 Three years after Sri Lanka was hit by tsunami, people are disappointed at the pace of reconstruction work. An aid worker admits that there has been a disconnect between intended efforts and what has actually materialised.

12/18/2007 Indian capital New Delhi is busy transforming itself into a modern city before the Commonwealth Games to be held in 2010. In the process, Delhi’s poor are being uprooted and left alone to fend for themselves.

12/13/2007 The poor of Karachi in the Sindh province of Pakistan face evictions from the main city. They are being thrown out on the outskirts to make way for global capital and emerging middle class.

12/04/2007 UNICEF, in collaboration with Save the Children International Alliance, has already built 27 day-care centres in eight cyclone-affected districts of Bangladesh. It plans to build 380 more safe spaces in next few weeks to assist 20,000 child victims to help them recover from the calamity.

11/26/2007 Even while 3,000 and more people were killed by the deadly storm, local volunteers shouting warnings about the impending cyclone on loudspeakers saved thousands of lives in Bangladesh. This simple, inexpensive and effective warning model is now inspiring policymakers in developing countries.

11/23/2007 The World Bank has announced $250 million in aid for the recovery and rehabilitation of millions of Bangladeshis affected by Cyclone Sidr. Part of the funds will also be used to strengthen the country’s disaster mitigation systems.

11/22/2007 The international community has responded to the Bangladesh cyclone, pledging over US$ 120 million in monetary aid and relief material. The European Commission's humanitarian field experts report that 280,000 homes have been swept away and people are living in the rubble left behind.

11/21/2007 No scholarships or unemployment allowance to the disabled, no financial assistance to widows, no juvenile shelter homes, no primary school for the deaf, no home for mentally retarded, no leprosy complex and no disbursement of funds to old-age homes. Despite availability of funds, the social welfare schemes of the Delhi government are in a shambles.

11/19/2007 Barely a village has been left untouched by the Cyclone Sidr in south-western Bangladesh. As tolls mount over two thousand, it is seen that the poor have been hit hardest by the storm.