The Other Side: Making a house a home

For most people fleeing their homes one of the most urgent needs is shelter. If you arrive at a camp this is for the most part sorted for you (albeit not particularly adequately a lot of the time). However, many displaced people do not live in camps. This happens for many reasons: they might not be able to physically reach a camp because it's too far, they might not be allowed to enter certain areas due to ethnic tensions, they might prefer to try and find somewhere to live out of the camp context to try and maintain some normalcy to their lives.

One of the projects in my area therefore is working with families who are displaced but not living in camps, to try and improve their shelter conditions. In Iraq, due to the pre-crisis context, there are huge numbers of unfinished construction works. Most people here build their own home at some point, and many people were doing just this when the latest crisis struck. At this point construction generally halted - either the families themselves moved away, often overseas; or there was simply suddenly no money to continue. Villages, towns and cities are therefore full of displaced people squatting in unfinished buildings. These are buildings which are at different stages of completion, but typically will be missing windows and doors, will be made simply of breeze-blocks that would have been concreted over later, are not connected to power or water, have no kitchens or bathrooms and may be missing internal walls among other issues. Often several families will be living in a single building together, and will pool resources to try and make things vaguely habitable. They may have received NFI (non-food item) kits of mattresses, blankets, kitchen utensils etc that they can use in the house. Different charities have provided different things like putting in pit latrines outside so that people at least have a private toilet, or providing tarpaulins to cover windows and doors to try to weather-proof the building a little.

DRC (my charity) has been working on some slightly more substantial upgrades to houses in certain areas. As always, there's never enough to go around, and so the selection criteria that were agreed with the donor for the project are pretty strict. We are focusing on over-crowded buildings which can reach a certain level of upgrade at a cost of up to $2,000 per building. Selecting contractors to carry out the work turned in to an enormous saga (possibly the understatement of the year), and so last week I was thrilled to go and see the work in action which I have been discussing and planning with the team for so long.

We are working primarily on putting in proper windows and doors, connecting houses to electricity and water, putting in very basic kitchens and bathrooms, installing stair rails and ceiling fans. The difference that it makes for such a relatively small amount of money is phenomenal. Families say it quite literally transforms their lives as they feel safer, gain personal space, and are able to cope with the extremes of weather better. I particularly loved seeing some little touches that families were able to make that were turning their houses in to homes - hanging empty food tins with plants in them, pinning up a mirror or some plastic flowers. People have almost zero belongings and yet were still able to take pride in their homes, and to add personal touches here and there.

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of the context.....