Caritas India’s Relief Project in partnership with Caritas Schweiz receives award by Switzerland Government

Caritas Schweiz Country Director Ms. Keerti K and Programme Manager Mr. Satish Kumar visited the Kerala Flood relief project site in Idukki district from the 21st of January 2019 to the 24th of January 2019. The purpose of the visit was to observe the impact of the project as well as understand the challenges that were faced during the course of the project and solutions that were sought to overcome them.

The relief project which was supported by Swiss Solidarity in partnership with Caritas Schweiz aimed at meeting the urgent needs of the flood and landslide affected families. This was done in two phases; the first phase focused on delivering Non Food items namely utensils to 1950 families who lost their homes, the second phase of the project focused on delivering unconditional cash transfers of Rupees 10,000/-  to 811 families who completely lost their homes and were unable to cope with the shocks of the flood. In the first visit which took place in November last year after the conclusion of the first phase of the project, a few recommendations were given to improve the efficiency of the programme. The team was content to see that these recommendations had been implemented in the second phase of the project during the cash transfers.  This project received recognition from the Switzerland Government and was awarded the Best Project in 2018.

During the visit, the team interacted with the beneficiaries of Panniyarkutty, Karimban, Munnar, Churului, and Venmany. The community highlighted some of the processes of the project which they felt were important and conducive to strengthening the capacities of the village-level communities. These committees brought people from different backgrounds under one roof to work for their own community. The committee members also expressed that they would have never thought that they would come together in such a way for the betterment of their own community and were happy that this project ignited a spirit of volunteerism among them and a sense of responsibility in such a way that they wish to continue these committees even after the project is completed. They also shared that they would like to suggest this good practice to other organisations that wish to work with their community in the future.

During the interactions with the beneficiaries, they also shared how they had been spending the money that they received through the unconditional cash transfer programme. Many beneficiaries used the money to repay debts from purchasing food, payment of rent, for repair and reconstruction of their homes, to buy medicines and pay for hospital bills, school fees of their children, and towards small income generation activities to recover some of their lost income. Both husbands and wives played equally important roles in the decision making for the utilisation of the cash. Ms. Saraswathy Ganeshan from Munnar said, “I was very excited to receive this amount in my bank account as this is the first time money has been transferred to my account. I even used my ATM card for the first time to withdraw the money so that I could use it.”

The biggest takeaway and learning from this project was the importance of establishing heterogenous committees to shoulder the responsibility of beneficiary selection, complaints & feedback handling and distribution from the commencement of the project. This not only leads to ownership in the community but can also pioneer a sense of volunteerism.