Housing Relocation Project for the Indigenous Families in Kalaiya

The housing relocation project for the indigenous families which was accomplished in Kalaiya. The project has covered 34 indigenous Thawai and Mushahar families who have been living in the government and private land since generations. 

Thawai community is one of the endangered communities who live in different parts of southern Nepal. People from Thawai community had migrated to Nepal from Simrangadh Municipality many years ago and settled in different parts of the country. The traditional occupation of these communities is to make stone spice grinders (Silauta). In Kalaiya, there are around 26 families of the Thawai community who are currently living in the urban area of Kalaiya by renting open private lands. Though they had been living in this way for many generations, the living conditions is extremely deplorable. 
 
The houses are built with bamboo and tarpaulin and is very temporary in nature. Some have the houses built with bamboo wattle and daub wall with mud plaster an either thatch or tarpaulin roof. The living condition is rather poor. And being in private land, they are unable to build anything tangible and permanent. Not only these families having dilapidated houses, they also do not have any access to services provided by the municipality such as water and proper sanitation. None of the families have toilets, all of them practice open defecation. Without access to drinkable water, they use two public water pumps for consumption. This is without any filtration and treatment, because of this, children in the community fall sick frequently. 

Another community of marginalized 8 families belonging to Mushahar Caste, too have been living in roadside areas since 4 generations. These are discriminated and are outcaste in the society. Their occupation is fishing. For livelihood, they work in farms as agricultural labourers. They do animal husbandry; they rear goats. Living in tattered houses built with tarpaulin, they are also facing a lot of challenges regarding the basic facilities need for the daily life. However, during the project implementation, some of the families were no longer interested to be part of the project, thus, new low-income families from other communities were identified and supported. 

The Kalaiya sub-metropolitan city provided a big piece of land for housing those families and Lumanti with support from Abbe Pier Foundation for housing construction and MISEREOR for social support provided technical support for the construction of the houses. The Sub-metropolitan City contributed grant worth NRs. 50,00,000.00 for the construction of the houses. Each targeted family received Nrs. 180,00,000.00 from Lumanti/Abbe Pierre Foundation. The beneficiary families also contributed their saving and labour for the construction of the houses.