With gracious help from many, including family, friends, and the Namaste Nepal program development team, I have accepted a new amazing position to help rebuild homes for the families impacted by the 2015 Nepal earthquakes.

The two earthquakes in Nepal, April 25th and May 12th respectively, left over half a million homes destroyed and many additional households damaged.

In cooperation with coordination system in place (Cluster approach under the Government of Nepal and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cross Nepal) our goal is to provide rebuilding assistance for local communities, including the following:

• collection of data (damage assessments)
• raising public awareness of seismic measures in constructions
• supervision and assistance with construction of new houses and repairs, ensuring recovery in a better standard (BBB principle – Build Back Better)

My favorite part of this program is that it engages the community through Owner Driven Reconstruction (ODR), it empowers the home owners with the knowledge to help themselves.

The Owner Driven Reconstruction program is a post-disaster method of recovery that involves people in rebuilding their own homes, which is widely supported by the international community as well as Government of Nepal. Activity of Namaste Nepal will focus on active assistance to the communities to help themselves.

Stay tuned as we prepare to officially launch the program early September 2015.