July 6th, 2006

A note from Eva Lerche’s diary

Part 3

The optimal would be that these institutions lay in the local areas in order that the handicapped do not loose their identity and potential friends. The optimal would be if some of the mothers who have lost their families would be ”mothers” in a SOS-children village model. Older men and women, handicapped as well ass healthy would have to be included. The area could possibly be divided up into a male and female section with a communal area in a traditional manner. The purpose would be to preserve a family structure, maybe in order to cater the children the best way possible who will grow up with a notion of family.

The adults will always suffer from a big loss and can, at mostly, get a sensation of a replacement family. For some maybe that’s good. Since a “mother” is not enough there will be the possibility got some in the local society to get work. Partially with cleaning, washing and making food.

There would be, in connection with these institutions, be built “gro-vægge” and ”højbede” à la Gösta Nielsson, this will make it possible, especially for the girls, to get acquainted with harvesting and agriculture for domestic consumption. There are different ways to help according to David Werners book. Cooking is learnt in the kitchen and washing of clothes in the laundry-room. Its important that the girls, in order to get married, to learn how to take care of a home. With one arm, one leg or no legs. For the boys it’s equally important that they take care of their own needs, just like the girls. But they should also get an education that can be used in the local area so that they can get a job in the future. These people should not be more “outside” of the society than they already are because of their handicap. Furthermore, envy should not be created due to too advanced education so that the assimilation into the local society is worsened.

For the young of both sexes who can not become married we have to consider what greater education could be a possibility in order for this person to get a job where he/she earns enough money to have an employed for the things that he/she can not do themselves.
Some will probably live off the institution all their lives, but in these houses will hopefully become something that resembles a normal family where the old pass away and the young get married. When these buildings, in a generation or more, do not serve the same importance, they can be used for something else that benefits the society.

June 7th, 2006

A note from Eva Lerche’s diary

Part 2

We drove to a village where there was an example of the houses that we would see up in the mountains. A traditional house built by mud and wood. It falls to the ground in a pile.

A man that was standing in the marketplace in Bagh when the earthquake hit describes how both ends of the marketplace rose up and fell into the middle. As he said, with big eyes, “You should have seen what the mountains did”. All must have shook and danced before his eyes. They are used to earthquakes in those areas, but no one alive has experienced such a long-lasting and powerful earthquake that lead to so much destruction.

In scarecly populated areas with houses spread across the mountainsides, where there are no roads but mule paths that have also been destroyed. It is a huge project that is not easily resolved and that will require aid for many years to come. The assistance the NGO’s can give is the acute medical aid, which is much needed. Many have already been operated on but are now dying because of infections due to the lack of medical care after the operation. But in the mountains the medical aid is lacking due to the absence of infrastructure.

After having spoken to aid-volunteers and Kashmiris I have thought the following:

- Its important to ask them what sort of assistance they need.
- Its important that the injured, to the extent possible, are treated on the spot
- Its important that they are not made to become refugees
- Its important that orphans stay in their surroundings so that they can keep their social network
- Its important that the survivors bond themselves to their families, or what remains of it
- Its important that widows, mothers and fathers, older and orphans that do not have surviving families gather in village groups so that their history and community can continue/strengthen.
- Its important that handicapped people remain in their societies for the same reasons as mentioned above
- Its important that we take the action which the locals want us to take.
- Its important that we try keep ourselves within their traditions and do not try to quest for a change of their ways of living, partly concerning the way they build their houses but also their ways of treating the handicapped. A change of more than 10% should be expected to be good. But with time the conditions can be raised by the use of education and adaptation to the large portion of the population which have become handicapped. Everyone will know that it is because of the earthquake and not a hereditary handicap.

Which groups need help?

-Some need building-material to move on
-Some need a bit of money in order to start their business
-Some will gather in their larger families and start from there one by using one of the proposals above
-Some will be completely alone, young as well as old and the handicapped
- Will the family be ready to take care of handicapped family members?
- If so, will they be interested in being taught about how to take care of handicapped people in a workshop?
- Will they accept that the handicapped gets an education according to his possibilities?
- Will they, if it shows that they can’t take care of the handicapped; accept that they are left for an institution?
- Will they make their homes, handicap friendly?
- Will they take out the handicapped into the society, with a capability in the form of some education?
- Will they accept to join the productive homestead model?
- Can we be certain that the ones who claim they are family members really are family? DNA?
- How do we make sure that the handicapped are taken care of by their families?
- Incoming health workers that are taking turns

How many handicapped people are there, what are the damages?
It’s estimated by the information given out by the hospitals that 15% are injured after fractures on their backs. Furthermore, many infectious bone fractures have been amputated to prevent mortal gangrene. With an estimated 300.000 injured, of whom 10% are injured and maybe 10% amputated there are maybe 60.000 handicapped. Many of them are children that were at home or at school.
If we predict that 50% of the handicapped that are without family then we need to provide for 30.000. The age difference will be big. They will come from different villages/valleys. If the size of a surviving family is 20 persons, then it would be suitable to make a suitable size on our 1.500 family houses for a price of minimum Rps 500.000 a piece with a total price of Rps 750.000.000, in dollars 12.500.000.

May 28th, 2006

A note from Eva Lerche’s diary

Part 1

As far as the eyesight goes, all houses had slipped down the tilted mountain sides. By the riverbank, which runs through the town, a four story high hotel had sunk to the ground. Nothing, except the roof that lay on the ground, could tell that once there had been a hotel here. I was told that the hotel owner had escaped the building miraculously, but the brother had died.

Here the tent towns began, tents in their hundreds had been set up where there was space. But its not tents in their hundreds that are needed but rather thousands. 200.000 is needed. All emergency organisations had their hospitals along the road. All NGO’s, muslim as well as christian are here. Doctors from Turkey, Korea, China, USA with their”war-hospitals”. I did not see MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres). But I was informed by their homepage that they were present. People, mostly men strolled up and down along the road or sat and stared into the air, sitting on small peaks made up of bricks and twisted metal. Some had started opening up small stalls where possible.

And then on to Muzafarbad, where the old part of the city had been damaged severely.

Mr. Aslam Khanliq took us to the leader of The Citizens Foundation, Mr. Adnan, who was standing by the Perl Continentels construction yard. Mr Adnan is a man who calmly and politely, with a satellite phone that rings every four minutes, directs his troops, while a multitude come to him with questions about anything from heaven to earth. A unique man that has found his place in the middle of the chaos and to a large extent gets things started. I applaud him. There had not been any major damage. TCF were the first to arrive. They are primarily a foundation for the establishment of schools and have created 700 in the last seven years.
Mr Adnan Agdhar from Triple A Architects and member of TCF immediately proceeded with getting doctors and a working operational room with anaesthesia.

Here, doctors work around the clock. It’s not rare that they conduct operations during several days without rest. Our doctors from DMA in Karachi were there and my contact doctor from DMA in Islamabad was also there. They worked incredibly until the American army came with their field hospitals. TCF then got three hours to pack up the operation-patients, intensive-patients as well as the operational room, they had to leave quickly. Patients died who might have already been dead!

TCF have taken 40 villages under their authority, their all in two creaks that diminish in Muzarfarbad, they concentrate on acute as well as long term assistance. These areas are not accessible by car. In a week they will build a prototype for a house that will be better secured for any future earthquakes. We are invited and will bring a carpenter from our village because he, together with Mansoour, will be paid by us to educate those that are interested in our ideas about cheap, more secure housing.

December 2nd, 2005

Mother ran in to fetch baby sister

A personal account by Nawaz Khan, DMA staff member in Pakistan

In DMA’s camp on the outskirts of Islamabad, it seems everyone has a story to tell. A two-year-old girl looks up and smiles at me as she aims for my attention. Her name is Malika and her mother was killed instantly when their house collapsed during the earthquake. Her father, Arif Bashir, shares with me the events of that particular day, when his family was cut into half in an instance. Prior to the earthquake, his family consisted of his wife, his five-year-old daughter Sofia, two-year-old Malika and two-months-old Zohraf. Today, he is left with Sofia and Malika.

Malika’s father narrates
’It was the morning of October 8th. My eldest daughter Sofia had left for school and I was on my way to work in our fields. My wife and our two youngest daughters remained at home. I had just left home when the earth started to shake and dark clouds of dust started to rise all around me. I turned around and headed home in haste. Through the clouds of dust, I could somehow make out that our house had collapsed and proceeded to find Malika outside of the house. My wife and youngest daughter were nowhere to be seen or heard. I cried out my wife’s name and simultaneously tried to remove rubbles of bricks, hoping I would be able to find both of them. But it was too heavy for me to try to remove the tons of masses. Almost in panic, I ran towards the school in search of my eldest daughter. The school was situated only a few hundred metres from our house, but it was difficult to see beyond a few metres due to the clouds of heavy dust everywhere. When I finally got to my daughters school, I found her alive and she had luckily only received some skin injuries. I then returned to my house and with the help of a few neighbours, started to dig through the rubbles once again. I finally found both my wife and youngest daughter – both were dead. We pulled the dead bodies out of my house and the neighbouring houses and placed them in rows’. With longing and sadness in his eyes, the 29 year-old father recounts further:

‘It started to rain shortly thereafter. Once night fell and we were succumbed by darkness, we sat under the open sky, pulled our clothes above our heads and tried to make temporary shelter out of the rubbles in order to protect the children from the cold rain. We spent the entire night in the rain and early next morning, proceeded to bury the dead. During the next three days, we received no help whatsoever. We picked apples and corn from our fields and ate them. On the third day, helicopters dropped blankets and food down from the sky. It was another two weeks before the roads were cleared and we could collect the few belongings that we had left and head towards Islamabad’. Arif Bashir, the 29 year-old father continues:

‘We have received all the help that we could possibly ask for in DMA’s camp In Islamabad. But there is no doubt that we wish to return to our village. It is difficult not to delve into depression whilst remaining in the camp and not being active. My daughters cannot bear to see me disappear out of sight and panic if I am gone for more than five minutes at a time. We are hopeful of the day when we are once again able to resume some form of normality in our lives’.

December 1st, 2005

DM-Aid adopts a village in Kashmir

A personal account by Abdul Wahid Pedersen, member Of the DMA Board, upon his recent return from Pakistan.

DM-Aid has made a recent decision to build Shelter-Homes for the homeless people in Kashmir. The same trend is spotted amongst most of the other organisations carrying out relief work. DM-Aid has further ‘adopted’ the village of Pattiaka, which is situated just outside of Muzaffarabad (capitol of Azad Kashmir). Pattiaka is made up of approx. 350 families and the initial plan is to erect a shelter home for each household. The advantage connected to shelter homes is that although they will initially function as an intermediary solution, they can, however, later on be converted into permanent houses. Further to this, shelter homes resemble the existing architectural mode of building houses.

Each shelter house costs approximately 2.000 Danish kroner. We have secured financing for roughly 150 shelter homes and the financing of the remaining 200 is also almost secured. Further to this, the plan is to establish a health clinic, which we will run for about six months. We also plan to provide the children with a school so that they can start to build their schooling again. Finally, the plan is to quantify the number of orphaned children in the village so that we can start a scheme for their provision. The costs will be x amount of children multiplied by 150 Danish kroner per month. A provisional figure estimates the amount of orphaned children to be around 100 or more in Pattiaka. In conjunction to the above, we also plan on securing amenities such as food for the village during the winter months.

When the initial phase has been established, more or less, we plan on implementing micro finance projects, which will help the families with long-term livelihood schemes. Some families will be helped with livestock, others will be given help with tools such as a sewing machine, and a weave or whatever is required in order to help them get re-established.

We are also running a refugee camp on the outskirts of Islamabad, with approximately 105 families. The plan is to provide the families with food and shelter for the next six months and then, hopefully, these families will be able to return to their respective villages in Kashmir. We are also trying to help the children enter the local schools for the interim period. Parallel to this, however, we are also trying to set up a school in the refugee camp. The total budget for all the above prospects has not been finalised, but as a provisional figure we expect it to be around two million Danish kroner.

November 29th, 2005

Kashmir is still freezing

A personal account by Nawaz Khan, DM-Aid staff member in Pakistan

The relief efforts in Kashmir are moving at a slow pace in the areas that are accessible. The snow has begun to fall and has hindered access to many of the roads leading to the remote villages in the Kashmir region. The biggest crisis facing the survivors of the earthquake is now the bitter and icy cold.

A black shoe, size 38 lays between the collapsed bricks. I can’t help but wonder whether it belongs to one of the 1150 children who were lucky to survive the earthquake or whether it belongs to one of the 350 children who were not so lucky, but were instead buried alive under the collapsed debris.

We are situated in a small Kashmiri village. Almost two months have past since that fateful day in Baagh, when the earth was shaken to the core. The inhabitants are still dealing with the aftermath of the quake and much remains to be done. As I walk, there are still bodies buried amongst the collapsed rubbles beneath my feet, which have not yet been attended to. It is evidenced by the sweet and putrefying smell of decomposed human flesh.

Life, however, carries on in Kashmir. The few buildings that managed to refuse to give away to the earthquake are now being used as shops and storage facilities.

We are still very much in the initial phase of the relief efforts. Most people have been provided with blankets and tents. But now that snow- and icy rainfall seems to be the reality facing the survivors – they are, once again, faced with great calamity. Blankets and tents are soaking wet, and making a fire for cooking is not a possibility inside the tents.

The Danish relief organisation, DM-Aid has started to implement so-called ‘shelter-homes’ in order to aid the villagers with temporary housing schemes. The foundation consists of a wood frame with zinc sheets serving as both walls and roof cover. It is a relatively cheap option and not particularly aesthetic to the eye, but it seems a very suitable solution as it remains true to the local style of building houses. Also, the villagers will later on be able to convert shelter homes into more permanent living solutions. It is also suitable for indoor cooking and is cheaper in cost than winterised tents.

DM-Aid wishes to donate the materials for shelter homes, after which it is envisaged that people take part in building their own future homes. This way, the survivors can take an active part in re-creating their everyday lives.