Community managed tsunami housing project

Under the guidance of the Ministry of Housing and Common Amenities, National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) with the assistance of Tsunami Housing Supporting project (THSP) of GTZ has developed modules for capacity building and trained over 1,000 officials and community leaders in tsunami-affected areas in the coastal belt of Sri Lanka.

With the above experience a special module has been established to "community managed operation and maintenance systems" and International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC)/Spanish Red Cross has requested to the NHDA to introduce the above system to the tsunami donor driven housing project which were implemented by IFRC and Spanish Red Cross.

The agrement on the above programme has been singed by the NHDA and IFRC and Spanish Red Cross recently. The General Manager of NHDA L.S. Palansuriya has signed the agreement on behalf of the NHDA and Barry Armstrong, Deputy Head of Delegation, IFRC has signed the agrement on behalf of the IFRC.

With this programme, NHDA will implement special workshops based on community managed operation and maintenance system in Colombo, Ampara, Batticaloa, Galle, Matara and Gampaha covering more than 700 housing units. More than 1,500 officials and house holders will participate these workshops within the next 4 months.

The main objective of this programme is to find solutions of the problems faced by the householders.

Andrea Lorenzetti, Construction delegation of IFRC, Nagi Edirsinghe, Project Manager, Community Engagement Exercise, SLRCS and Dammika Gunawardena, Assistant General Manager (Special Projects) of NHDa also participated in the signing of the agreement.