Basic Information

Project Name	Food for work program to clean the flood affected villages
Project Period	December 31,2014 – January 20, 2015
Name of Organization	Association of Mobilizing Community Resources
Location City/State/Country	Batticaloa, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka

Project Goal

Support the flood affected communities to engage in cleaning the environment until their livelihoods are restored.

Primary Activities Implemented

The Individuals were instructed how properly they can clean their own compound and dispose the garbage/debris in environmentally friendly methods.

The VLGs coordinated the people and conducted 60 “Shramadhana” (Volunteer – common works) activities (altogether 28 shramadhana days) and 3404 individuals participated to clear the identified common community centers like playground, schools, pre-schools, temples, health clinic centers and libraries

A total of 3300 dry food packages were distributed. Out of 3300, 3275 were distributed to 7 villages in 3 Divisional Secretariat divisions. The balance was distributed to two orphanages in the Batticaloa district.

Challenges and Actions Steps Taken to Resolve

Since this project was designed to complete within one week of the affected beneficiary’s resettlement, purchasing, packing and distribution of food in a short period became as challenge, however we followed very strict timeframe of work including weekends and late hours, thus helped overcome this challenge. In addition to the AMCOR staffs, 27 volunteers including 10 community mobilizers and 17 members of Past Pupils Association of Methodist Central College, Batticaloa we assist us in packing and loading into trucks.

Due to the president election in Sri Lanka is also held during the same week of our project, government coordination and getting written approvals prior to implement the project became a big challenge. However due to AMCOR’s good reputation with the government officials we were able to get approvals on weekends and even at their residences.

Another common challenge is, accuracy of the name list provided by the Grama Niladharies. The following mistakes can always happen in general.

• Non updated version of the list for 2-3 years, so that permanently emigrated families from the village and expired people’s details will be there and at the same time newly married family’s details will be missing.
• Hand written lists and the serial numbers will not be in order, therefore by looking at the last number will not match with actual counting.
• Some families will have dual entries in the list. Means husband and wife will register their names separately to receive double benefits.

We have overcome the challenge by the following ways.

• We collected the name list and typed the names an Identification numbers in Excel therefore we did crosschecking on repeating names and identification numbers. We also maintained correct serial numbers and verified the matching of last number and actual count.
• Based on the excel list, we gave numbers to every family one day prior to the distribution. Our Communbity mobiloizers visited directly to the houses to give this number. Which helped us to spot/check whether the family is actually living in the villages or not. Also it helped us spot and avoid giving two numbers to one family due to duel entries.

Due to the presidential election in the same period, many political parties also try to get credit out of our distributions. To avoid all the distributions were made through AMCOR’s Village Livelihood groups (VLGs) and since most of the beneficiaries are members of the VLGs, the information is very clear. In addition to that, a printed list of items including the quantity and price with the description of donor and implementer of the project was places inside every food pack.

Client/Participant Success Story or Details of a Program Achievement

The biggest success is we have completed the project within the proposed time frame even though there were many challenges and extra works as mentioned in the Section 2. Since the distribution was completed without any discriminations, all the community were happy and actively participated in clearing works and shramadhana days. The community was expressed their happy and thankful by sending many letters to AMCOR and to the Divisional Secretaries too.

Short and Long Term Results

The short term result is community engaged village clearing during the first week of disaster. This helped to reduce the risks of spreading waterborne diseases after the inundation and to control the mosquito reproduction which are carrying a most dangerous Dengue Virus.

Since the coordination of people for common works and compensate their time and efforts by providing foods are carried out by VLG members under the supervision of AMCOR and Grama Niladharies, the importance of well-functioning VGS was understood by the non-members which will lead them to join in existing VLGs and to involve economic and social capital development activities.

Best Practices:

As described in Section 2, AMCOR computerized the hand written name list received from Grama Niladharies to easily cross check repeating names and identification numbers.

Providing serial numbers to the beneficiaries in excel will also helped us to count the actual numbers of beneficiaries rather than just looking last number in the hand written list.

The beneficiary number was giving to them one day prior to the distribution date and this was done by visiting and physically verifying the accuracy of the family details, which allowed us to avoid double distribution to one family.

By providing the number, we easily managed a que system by have many distribution counters and certain numbers are assigned to each counters, therefore the beneficiaries will walk into the appropriate counter to prove their identity and register in the received notes.

AMCOR also allocated different time for certain numbers, to avoid all of them gather to one point in same time. Therefore, the maximum time taken for a person to wait in the que to receive the package is 12 minutes only. Minimum is less than one minute.

AMCOR opened a special que for elders, disabled peoples, pregnant mothers and mothers carrying infants.

Based on the family size, two different quantity of packages were distributed. For family members up to 3 received a small pack which contains the quantity enough for 3 people for seven days and for families with members more than 4, received a package called medium which contains quantity enough for 5 people for seven days.

The items as well as the quantity of the dry food package was decided based on the World Food Program’s (WFP) recommended quantity Per Person/Per Day (PP/PD)  

In order to ensure nondiscrimination during the distributions, AMCOR requested the Grama Niladharies to write the names of the missing newly married families in the list and to get the approval of Divisional Secretary’s approval as the second list and based on the approval AMCOR did a second day of distributions. Out of 7 villages, in six villages we had to do a second distributions which costs us additional transport, but we managed it.

Even though the procurement procedures were followed up to purchase 3800 food package based on the initial estimation, with AMCOR’s previous experience in similar distributions, we issued the purchase order with a condition of 75% of confirmed purchase and the balance based on the actual. By this method we avoid

Lessons Learned

Since we issued the purchase order to deliver the items to the supplier, but due to limited space at AMCOR office, we found issues to receive and store until packing. The important lessons we learned here is we have to break the purchase order in 3 -4 parts, so that we can manage the space.

Because the suppliers are not aware about the package details, they started supply one item first in several transport and did the second one only after completing the first one. It causes delays and the packing teems were idle until the whole materials were supplied. In next time we will plan accordingly for a better system to receive different goods parallel.

 

     

    

    

 

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அம்கோர் நிறுவனத்தின் ஏற்பாட்டில் “வேலைக்குஉணவு”எனும் அடிப்படையில் உலர் உணவுவழங்கும் நடவடிக்கை more ►