*THE TRIBES OF ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS*

*THE TRIBES OF ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS*

N. Francis Xavier

When I received the letter from Prof. Mohan inviting me to speak on thesubject it was indeed a surprise. I am no anthropologist or a biologist.What prompted him to call me I am not aware. But, after living for 30 yearsin the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, I think everyone becomes qualified to saysomething on the tribes of the islands. They have been so much a part ofour lives, but fading away into slow extinction now. We are witnesses tothe twilight years of most of the tribes. We have had our own encounterswith the indigenous tribes over the years. We have read about them, seenthem in person or heard stories (fictionalized to some extent) from others.Therefore, instead of presenting a scholarly paper with plenty of footnotesand endnotes and quoting extensively from past authors I have decided tostring together my experiences and place them before you. I humbly submitthat they are not scientific, nor do they point a finger at any person ororganization. They are merely the spontaneous feelings aroused in a humanwhen he comes face to face with another human who is slightly different inappearance and follows a different life style.When I read the topic for today’s seminar I was a bit puzzled. One doesn’tneed much preparation to talk on the tribes of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. But,the second part – the role of youth in conservation – what could that mean?There seemed a hidden paradox in it. The term ‘conservation’ itselfexcludes all contact with outsiders. Then where does the “role of youth”come in?It is with these thoughts I started preparing this lecture. I will list myexperiences with the tribes of Andaman & Nicobar Islands in the usual orderin which they are described, starting with the Great Andamanese.“The clash between the outsider and the Andamanese always ended in tragedyfor the Andamanese” says JH Williams in his book The Spotted Deer.*The Great Andamanese* were the most numerous of the tribes inhabiting theAndaman group of islands when settlement took place. *They were the firstto come in contact with civilization, and the first to be driven to theverge of extinction. *The less than 40 surviving members of this tribe havebeen relocated on *Strait** Island**. * We know a few names. Lichu is quitewell known, often seen in Port Blair and the most vocal of the tribe. AdiBasera, the modern day Andaman Home has a few members camping there always.One young man could be seen begging in the streets in a highly inebriatedstate. A young woman has been inducted into the police force as a trafficconstable. She is often touted as an example of the progress the tribe hasmade. * *But the real picture is grim. The remnants of this proud tribe whoonce owned this very land on which we have built the city of Port Blair areliving in pitiable conditions, with no hope of survival.The betrayal of the Andamanese started long ago, with a man called DoodnathTewary. The sepoy convict escaped from Ross Island on 23 April 1858 andlived with the Andamanese for a period of one year and twenty-four daysbefore returning to the settlement to report about the impending attack onthe settlement. The Battle of Aberdeen on 17th May 1859 gave a taste of theweapons of the civilized world to the Andamanese. Their bows and arrowswere no match to the guns of the British. But the most painful was thebetrayal by a man whom they treated as one of them, who married one of theirwomen. What is not often told is that Doodnath returned to the islands in1866 on his way to the Sarawak islands to join the service of the White Rajaof Sarawak. The men in the Andamanese home forgot the betrayal and embracedhim, but the women shouted and abused him for deserting his wife Leepa whowas pregnant at the time of the attack on the settlement. We learn that shegave birth to a still-born child later. Mixing up with outsiders hasalready started. Later there are many instances of convicts fatheringchildren on Andamanese women. In no time syphilis surfaced among thetribes. This was a death blow to the tribe.In the ensuing years the Andamanese were subdued and used as trackers tocapture runaway convicts. Jacko, an Andamanese was taken to Calcutta by FJMouat to be presented before the Viceroy, Lord Canning. When Rev. Corbyntook the Andamanese to Calcutta the people spat upon them and insulted them,calling them “Rakshasas.” MV Portman says they (Andamanese) returned to PortBlair very unhappily after this excursion.All this is history, well documented and much written about. But has ourattitude to the Andamanese changed today? Have we not exiled them to StraitIsland? One young woman of the tribe, aged about 28, educated up to8thstandard and highly intelligent finds that she has no suitablematch in hertribe according to their kinships. All the males are either too old or tooyoung. They are either brothers or uncles. She is left with twoalternatives – either marry someone outside her tribe, and thus invite theanger of the officials, or remain a spinster all her life. She chooses theformer. All hell breaks loose when she does this. She is insulted, abusedand threatened. Her dole is stopped. She loses the daily rated job she wasdoing. In spite of all the reservations for the scheduled tribes she failsto find a regular job. Only after a long fight she manages to get a job,thanks to the interference of a kind-hearted Chief Secretary. What wouldhappen to her children? Would they get the tribal status? Would they alsobe exposed to the social stigmas she and her fellow tribals are facingtoday? This is what we have to debate upon. I have known this woman veryclosely and was much disturbed by her suffering. I often wondered if shewere to go to the Supreme Court to fight for her right to the lands of herancestors what judgment the Hon’ble court would give. This is just one ofthe cases. The Great Andamanese are, for all practical purposes, an extincttribe today.*The Onges* of little Andaman also came in contact with the civilizationearly, but their hostility and relative inaccessibility of Little AndamanIsland ensured their better survival. But even they are under threat today.They survived the tsunami, thanks to their tribal wisdom but something fromoutside took away one-tenth of their tribe at one stroke. Just a few monthsago they drank something from a jerry can found on the beach (it isreported) and died. What was in that can, who gave it to them or how theygot it will never be known. But one wonders that a tribe whose verysurvival depends on their ability to identify the edible nature of thethings they gather would drink something so thoughtlessly. I have visitedtheir settlement and their camp on Little Andaman soon after the tsunami. ProfVishwajit Pandya, the renowned anthropologist who studied their language andlived with them was there with us. The Onges described in their ownlanguage to Prof. Pandya how they all rushed to higher ground the momentthey felt the earthquake. Their tribal wisdom saved them.Pandya who studied their myths records one such in his landmark book “Abovethe Forest – A Study of Andamanese Ethno-anemology, Cosmology, and the Powerof Ritual”. The book is a fascinating study of the life style of the Onges.One of the myths tells the story of what happened when the tribe went toAberdeen (Port Blair) and brought back tobacco and tea. According to thestory the Onge men made a big canoe and decided to go to Aberdeen and gettobacco and tea. After enjoying the tea and tobacco the women tell them togo and get some more. The next time they too accompany them breaking thetaboo of leaving their settlement. The result was catastrophic. Nonereturn from the journey. Only children and old people were left in thesettlement. It is the punishment of the spirits for breaking age-oldtaboos. Is it possible that the Onges whose myths are full of stories likethis would drink the contents of a jerry can from an unknown source? Who isresponsible for these deaths? How many years would it take for the tribe toregenerated itself?*Let us now look at the Jarawas*. Jayanta Sarkar in his book The Jarawa, ofthe ASI Andaman & Nicobar Island Tribes Series describes them as the “onetribe that refused to succumb to violent measures or respond to friendlygestures and remained outside the fold of the British Administration.” Butthat was long ago. How many of us have not seen them standing on the ATRand making gestures pointing to their stomach and mouth? How many people inthe long convoys that go to Middle Andaman everyday are really going to seethe mud volcano? Are they not on the Jarawa safari?About 15 years ago every month or two there used to be a killing by theJarawas reported. The very mention of the name struck fear in ourhearts. Todaythey are a spectacle to be watched. They even dance and sing and demandpayment. Any web-search would throw up hundreds of photos, some even forsale.It all started with a Jarawa named Enmei. The day he was found with afractured leg and brought to the GB Pant hospital, a new chapter opened inthe history of the Jarawas. A few months later, Enmei and his wife were inPort Blair to meet the Prime Minster of India. Enmei was a totally changedman, wearing a new Tee-Shirt and shorts. His wife wore a colourfulnightgown. Enmei signed his name in English and drew perfect pictures of afish and a crocodile using a pen. The incident was described as a landmarkin our relations with the Jarawas. Today the most feared tribe is nothingbut a someone to be gawked at from buses and cars.The deeper reason for this change is our infiltration into their triballands and the destruction of the forest. In her book “Development andEthnocide –Colonial Practices in the Andaman Islands” Sita Venkateswar says,“…if we fail to protect the forest in which the Jarawa live, the forest theyhave kept intact for thousands of years, we destroy not only the forest butalso all that which confers beauty on the world in which we live;”The reaction of Lichu, the Great Andamanese who had traditional enmity withthe Jarawas was different. She feels that the “Jarawas should be transportedfrom where they were in Middle and South Andaman and relocated elsewhere, onsome other islands, just like the Andamanese had been earlier.” Surprisinglythere was once a proposal of this nature which was fortunately turned downby the Government of India.It is Jayanta Sarkar’s concluding words that touch our hearts. He says “TheJarawa are also human beings like the rest of us and have the same right tolive undisturbed in their homeland as other citizens have.” Are we ready totreat them like this?*Now let us look at the Sentinelese*, the least known of all the tribes. Veryfew contacts have been made with this tribe. And, on almost all occasionswere violently repulsed. TN Pandit, whom most of us know, says in the ASIpublication that, “The Sentinelese are well aware of outsiders, andappreciate the dangers that may lie ahead of them. Their reaction to visitshas been one of extreme hostility.”Prem Vaidya, who was filming the famous documentary “Man in Search of Man,”showed me the long scar on his thigh where a Sentinelese arrow hit himduring the filming. He also told me about the deadly marksmanship of theSentinelese archers. When they saw that the boat of the outsiders was outof bowshot they lay down in the sand using their feet to hold the bow andstretching the bowstring with their teeth to increase the range of theirtwo-meter long arrows. It was one such that hit Vaidya. We see the wardance of the Sentinelese everyday in the documentary, screened everyday inthe ASI museum.After that there have been records of several ‘contact’ programmes orgift-dropping expeditions. Almost always the ‘gifts of civilization’ havebeen rejected by the Sentinelese in full view of the contact party, ademonstration of their desire to be left alone.I take this opportunity to narrate my personal experience on one of theencounters. I was accompanying a high level delegation dealing with thewelfare of the tribes who wanted to have a first hand experience of thecontact programme. A special boat was arranged and we sailed on a serenesea just a few months before the tsunami disaster towards North Sentinel. Theship anchored a long distance from the shore. A Gemini was lowered and asack of ‘gift articles’ kept in it. It was nothing but coconuts. I jumpedinto the boat first expecting a heavy rush for seats. To my surprise thecoxswain started the boat immediately and headed towards the shore. I wastold nobody was ready to get into the boat. The water was shallow andcrystal clear. As we neared the shore the boat crew pointed. We saw a redcloth waving to us from behind a clump of trees. Then I saw movement. Iused the telephoto lens to have a closer view. There was a group ofSentinelese waving and shouting to us. The boatman slowed down and quicklythrew the sack overboard. I thought he would go close to the shore but healready turned the boat around. Then we saw that the men were carryingtheir long bows hidden behind a log. As we moved away two men launched adugout and poled towards the sack. I could not see what they did with the‘gifts’.*Coming to the last of the primitive tribes -- the Shompens:* I met them forthe first time during a visit to Great Nicobar in 1984. We were cruisingfor a fortnight among the little-known islands of the southern group. I hadin my hand Boden Kloss’ book, trying to look for the familiar landmarksdescribed in it. We met the tribe in the Shompen Hut area where they cometo trade in barter goods, exchanging resin and honey for rice, dal, sugar,tea and match boxes. What struck me most was their sickly appearance. Evenearlier reports describe the incidence of goiter, asthma and filariasisamong the Shompens.We claim that the Shompens are well-looked after. But Dr SNH Rizvi in theASI Series book says that, “An Ashram type school for the Shompens has alsobeen stared by the Andaman Administration in the Shompen Hut Complex. Duringmy second visit in May 1987, I observed that there were no Shompen childrenenrolled in the school nor was a teacher posted there.”When the tsunami struck in December 2004 there were many enquiries about thesafety of the Shompens. It was only later we leant that 6 people died. TheShompens are also struggling to keep their tribe alive. Their problem isthe same as that of the Andamanese young woman. There are no eligiblespouses for the men among the Shompens. What is the future of the Shompens?Perhaps they would slowly assimilate into the Nicobaris who are living onthe same island.I would like to close with Pandit Nehru’s words from the speech delivered atthe opening session of the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled areas Conferenceheld in New Delhi in June 1952, which show his deep concern for theindigenous people of India. He says, “I find that so far we have approachedthe tribal people in one of two ways. One might be called theanthropological approach in which we treat them as museum specimens, to beobserved and written about … The other approach is one of ignoring thefact that they are something different, requiring special treatment, and ofattempting forcibly to absorb them into the normal pattern of social life”.We must find some middle path if we want to do something for the tribes ofthese islands.TN Pandit’s words are again very important. He says “The minorities and theweak have a right to live according to their genius and to change as andwhen they choose to, according to their needs and in the direction they finduseful within the general framework of the national, constitutional andlegal objectives.”Pandit goes on to say that, “…there is a great need for public and masseducation leading to the acceptance of such groups, with their differentlooks and life styles, as equals.”The question is, are we ready to do this? Are we ready to accept thesetribes as equals and allow them the freedom to choose their own way of life?***Bibliography1. Anthropological Survey of India: Andaman and Nicobar Island TribeSeries2. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Andaman and NicobarIslands3. Mouat Frederic J.: The Andaman Islanders4. Pandya Vishvajit: Above the Forest – A Study of Andamanese Ethnology,Cosmology and the Power of Ritual5. Portman M.V.: A Hisotry of Our Relations With the Andamanese6. Vekateswar Sita: Development and Ethnocide – Colonial Practices inthe Andaman Islands7. Williams J.H.: The Spotted Deer[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

ENERGY

SOLOMON INDUSTRIES CONCEPT PROMOTING GREENER ENVIRONMENT

All material in this presentation is under strict copyright

and may not be duplicated without prior permission . If

duplicated You must have a written and signed

agreement by the owner of this technology.

Solomon Industries LLC ™

Considered green and renewable fuel

Surpasses air quality pollution emission standards

Fuel Pellets replaces fossil fuels that creates air pollution

Pellet can generate over 16,500 Btu’s per pound and temperatures in excess of 2300º F

within a few minutes

The unique shapes are enhanced by the hole in the center to cause a natural up draft through

the center

This effect is scientifically known as the Bernoulli Effect, which explains the flow or

turbulence created through a natural drafting effect

Natural Building

Natural building is based on a philosophy that places the highest value on social and environmental sustainability. Natural building is about integrating our built environments into their local ecologies and communities with a minimal amount of adverse effects on local and distant environments. It is believed that natural building improves lives in many ways. It allows us to show deep respect for our immediate environment and gives us the chance to make responsible decisions regarding distant environments. Our goal is to use minimally refined and manufactured, non-toxic, natural materials.Natural building is not new, but it is revolutionary. Most of our grandparents, including those of us from the industrialized North, practiced natural building. Before the advent of standardization, mass production, and long-distance transport, people relied on locally available materials to house their family. During the last century there has been a shift towards the import of building materials, causing disastrous effects on ecosystems, cultures, and communities. But we have a choice. By exchanging earth and straw bale for concrete and cement, by choosing locally milled lumber and roundwood over lumber that has been unsustainably harvested, and opting for natural clay plasters, washes, and paints instead of dangerous chemical varnishes, stuccoes and paints, we can exert a force to affect change in our economies and in our lifestyles.

Cob
Cob is the Old English word for an earth building technique that combines clay sediment, sand, fiber, and water, which is hand sculpted to form walls, benches, ovens, and fireplaces. Variations of this technique are found around the globe and through the millennia. Cob building makes use of readily available, affordable, non-toxic materials to build beautiful, organic structures. Historical and anecdotal evidence has proven cob buildings to be long-lived, weather-resistant, earthquake-resistant, and comfortable. As pressure to continue manufacturing toxic building components while degrading our environments for building materials increases, cob provides an excellent, affordable alternative.

Straw Bale
Straw bale building was common in Nebraska during the early twentieth century. The renaissance of this building material began in the late 1970s and early 1980s and is even stronger today. Straw bale building makes use of an underutilized waste product of agriculture. Straw bales are stacked like giant masonry blocks, usually pinned together with rebar, wooden or bamboo stakes. The massive straw bale walls provide a high insulation value. Building with straw bales can decrease the amount of lumber needed for a building, lower its energy costs, and can be more affordable than conventional stick frame buildings. Marrying the insulating properties and speed of straw bale construction with the thermal mass and compressive strength of cob is a concept currently under research.

Slipstraw
This is also known as light-straw or straw-clay. Slipstraw is a building material made by coating straw with clay slip. Slipstraw combines a readily available, affordable material that has good thermal retention, namely earth, with the excellent insulating abilities of fiber. This creates a lightweight, insulative building material that is resistant to fire, insects and rot. It can be packed between forms to build freestanding walls. It can also be used to insulate walls and roof spaces. Recently, people have been experimenting with wood-chips and clay slip to create a similar material to slipstraw.

Roundwood Carpentry
A timeless, natural approach to the use of wood, timber is used without being squared by sawing or hewing. The integrity and strength of the wood are maintained by retaining its natural shape. The forest is a supermarket of sizes and geometries for posts, beams, and rafters.

Finding and Using Recycled Materials
The use of recycled and refurbished materials is in harmony with the philosophy of natural building. Windows, glass, doors, fixtures, lumber, bricks, and more are being brought to landfills every day. Thankfully, many places have set up collection and distribution sites where the thrifty and aware can pick up these types of materials either for free or for a minimal fee. Hunting for, repairing and refurbishing, and finally using recycled materials helps us to break out from our society's 'throw-away'

For Me to Learn

Natural Hazards and Site Selection
Many regions of world are vulnerable to natural hazards such as floods, cyclones, volcanic erruption, landslides or earthquakes. It is important to understand the effects of these natural phenomena to decide where and how to build safe houses.
A very interesting discussion that triggered last week among a very strong group of conservationists in http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/ is on topic that said "Mangroves 'do not protect against tsunamis".the report published in http://www.scidev.net/en/news/mangroves-do-not-protect-against-tsunamis-.html [CHENNAI] Claims that coastal forests can protect communities from the impact of tsunamis have been dismissed in a new report.
There are still many other reputable scientists who differ in their viewpoints.
The only statement that striked me in the discussion where someone said " science is rational, unlike conservation which is sensational", i really valued that expression.
Growing of mangrove as understood is a natural phenomenon mainly functional to prevent soil erosion, buffering is an extended feature.
Take the case of River Koshi or the deltas of Bengal with the changing courses of rivers almost every year it is really difficult to identify a safe location for resettlement and is still uncleaver to design a permanent shelter programme in such site by implying ideas like Reclamation of land or what is called bandhs or barriers. in anycase we are far incapable to fight the mother nature. "Change is the law"and we need to learn to adapt it!
The Communities need to understand it for themselves to save their own lives more than the external aid agencies disseminating informations to them. it need to be more sensational will responding the needs of the community and mother nature.
Engineering can make safe structures but has its own limitations.
A very good example of engineering sucess is from the Tsunami: when Andaman and Nicobar Islands experienced the earth quake of 8.9 ritcher scale and a negligible amount of buildings were damaged in Port Blair Town, the Islands being in the Seismic Zone IV category the RCC structures were designed to the Std Bldg Codes, but it may not survive repeated shocks of similar magnitude forever. so the Message is quite clear.
I need to learn the future.

Lilypad : Floating, Eco, Refugees Architecture...

There are very few urban design solutions that address housing the inevitable tide of displaced people that could arise as oceans swell under global warming. Certainly none are as spectacular as this one. The Lilypad, by Vincent Callebaut, is a concept for a completely self-sufficient floating city intended to provide shelter for future climate change refugees. The intent of the concept itself is laudable, but it is Callebaut's phenomenal design that has captured our imagination.

was clearly the inspiration behind the design. The Lilypad, which was designed to look like a waterlily, is intended to be a zero emission city afloat in the ocean. Through a number of technologies (solar, wind, tidal, biomass), it is envisioned that the project would be able to not only produce it's own energy, but be able to process CO2 in the atmosphere and absorb it into its titanium dioxide skin.

Each of these floating cities are designed to hold approximately around 50,000 people. A mixed terrain man-made landscape, provided by an artificial lagoon and three ridges, create a diverse environment for the inhabitants. Each Lilypad is intended to be either near a coast, or floating around in the ocean, traveling from the equator to the northern seas, according to where the gulf stream takes it.

The project isn't even close to happening anytime soon, but there is value in future forward designs like the Lilypad. They inspire creative solutions, which at some point, may actually provide a real solution to the climate change problem.

Disaster Cycle and Sustainable Sheltering

The main focus of this discussion is to clearly identify shelter as an integrated and centrally placed need of the depriving disaster hit communities in the whole disaster cycle beyond technical assistance.

"Development starts with a safe and secure household, don’t neglect it"!

The concept of sheltering the disaster affected communities being a process of transition from a state of no shelter to permanent rehabilitation in a disaster cycle is well understood by the humanitarians in practice. The process of sheltering is not just technical assistance of reconstruction, talking about the move towards sustainability there are certain key drivers of a sustainable growth that I am trying to identify and focus here.
In any Natural Disaster the affect is both on the human communities and the built natural environment, where both the human communities and the natural environment are expected to heal each other by understanding each other’s needs and extending the best possible approach.
It is important to identify the active and passive drivers of the impact and its extent due to disaster to both communities and environment.
In many remote communities living closely with nature and surviving repeated disasters it is studied that both environment and society has degraded extensively over the last few decades with increased frequency of disasters and less gaps between the consecutive disasters for self environment restoration. Case studies from many such communities have shown that due to environment degradation the self recovery capacity of the communities have gone down typically.
Earlier the communities use to recovery comparatively much quicker than today because of the easy access to indigenous building material. In the case of today with the degraded environment the communities have to depend upon external assistance for building the shelter homes. But the environment today has very limited warriors. Contextualizing Habitat shall primarily focus on a broader framework of restoring environment to build back better shelters, clearly not violating the laws of biodiversity.

Shelter and Environmental restoration
Key elements of environment restoration programme for building back better.
1. Identifying the biomass that provides building material and the biomass that buffers the impact during disaster on community settlement.
2. Calculating the impact on the environment since last sustainable status and gap

3. Planting indigenous building material and buffers ( biosheid restoration) to meet the future need
4. Estimating the time span for restoration.
5. Finding a transitional reconstruction solution considering best practice and appropriate building types/ recycling material-energy.
6. Building environment awareness in communities.
7. Exiting in restoring mode to development.

The other identified drivers of sustainable sheltering programme in a disaster cycle are:

• Best Practice in Reconstruction and knowledge tranfer
• Integragion of socio economy and cultural components
• Integration of crosscutting components
• Safe and dignified shelters as strong basis of a public health intervention

most of the donors today see shelter as an independent component of providing technical assistance only and are hesitant to support the programme, but an appropriate and integrated shelter intervention shall help reform the development process towards sustainability....

Shelter Needs Assessment

Short, Medium and Long Term Shelter and Settlement Needs
In Humanitarian Practice the Sheltering of the homeless disaster affected people shall be considered as a process of transition from a state of no shelter to a permanent settlement mode.

The following points should be taken into consideration in relation to process and transition of the settlement planning and shelter provision.
(Assar, 1971; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1999; Sphere Project, 2000):

• People sleeping on beds or mats should have a minimum of 3.5m2 of floor area or 10m3 of air space. In rooms with high ceilings, double bunk beds may be used.


• Beds or mats should be separated by a minimum distance of 0.75 metres.


• Adequate ventilation is required. The amount of fresh air needed is approximately 20–30m3 per person per hour. It may be necessary to provide mechanical ventilation. Whenever possible, smoking and the use of cooking fires in the shelter should be strongly discouraged.


• An ambient temperature of 15–19 °C is desirable, but lower temperatures can be tolerated with warm clothing. In cold climates, buildings may need extensive repairs and modifications for winter conditions, particularly in conflict situations where windows and insulation material may have been removed or destroyed.


• To avoid very high temperatures in hot climates, buildings can be modified to increase shade, ventilation and thermal capacity, it is required to consider suitable building materials and the cross ventilation while designing the roofs and shades of the shelter.


• Buildings should have emergency exits and fire escapes; the flues of stoves used for space heating should extend outside the building; overloading of electrical circuits should be avoided; lanterns and lamps should be placed or suspended so as to avoid dangers; and liquid fuels should be stored outside the building. Clear instructions on fire hazards and safety practices should be displayed in conspicuous places and drawn to the attention of residents; fire-fighting equipment should be available and properly maintained. A group of volunteers from among the survivors should be taught about the possible fire hazards and trained in the use of fire-fighting equipment.


• Access to sufficient water for drinking, cooking, and personal and domestic hygiene should be provided.


• One wash basin should be provided for every 10 people, or 4–5 metres of washbench for every 100 people; there should be separate benches for men and women, and waste receptacles at each bench. One shower head is needed for every 50 people in temperate climates and one for every 30 people in hot climates. Floors must be disinfected daily.


• Arrangements must be made for human waste disposal. Water-flushed toilets may be available in existing buildings if the water supply has not been interrupted. Outside latrines should be located within 50 metres of the building, but at least 20 metres away from the kitchen, dining hall and water supply.


• One refuse bin of capacity 50–100 litres should be provided for every 12–15 people. The bins should have tightly fitting lids. Special arrangements for the collection of refuse may be needed if the normal collection service is interrupted.

Short Term Shelter Needs

· Evacuation Centre
· Self settled/ grouped camps.
· Safe location
· Control over secondary hazards.
· Safe short term reception Area.
· Tanker /Running water and some toilet facilities for men and women.
· Community Kitchen Space and cooking facilities
· Adequate light and ventilation.
· Weather proofed and insulated resting sleeping provision.
· Changing Space.
· Registering office and desk
· 3.5m2 of floor area or 10m3 of air space
· Medium and long term need assessments

Medium Term Shelter Needs

· Safe and dignified family living space
· Appropriate intermediate shelters
· Long term need assessments
· Community / family temporary Toilet facilities.
· Camp settlement water points within easy reach
· Community meeting Space
· The site should be free of major water-related hazards
· The topography of the land should permit easy drainage and the site should be located above flood level. Rocky, impermeable soil should be avoided.
· Ideally the camp area should be naturally protected from adverse weather conditions.
· Service areas (30 Sq Mts per person, or 45 Sq mt. per person allowing for small gardens, but not for full-scale agricultural activities).
· Food distribution areas should be organized so as to create safe conditions for people collecting food, as well as for those distributing it.
· To facilitate the management and control of communicable diseases, camps should hold no more than 10000–12000 people, or should be subdivided into independent units of no more than 1000 people.
· The site should be provided with at least two access roads for reasons of security and to reduce the risk of the site being cut off due to floods or other problems with roads.
· Shelters should be arranged in rows or in clusters of 10–12 on both sides of a roadat least 10 metres wide to permit easy traffic flow and access by ambulances or fire-fighting vehicles. In tented areas, there should be at least 2 metres between the edge of the road and the tent pegs.
· Built-up areas should be divided by 30 metres wide firebreaks approximately every 300 metres. Firebreaks can be used for locating roads and recreation areas.
· There should be a minimum of 3.5m2 per person inside the shelter in warm climates where cooking is done outside, and 4.5–5.5m2 per person in cold climates where cooking is done inside the shelter.
· Separate accommodation is necessary for unaccompanied children, with provision for adults (welfare staff and/or community volunteers) to stay with them; there should be at least one adult per shelter or room.
·
· Kindergarten
· Medical Sub centre
· Rehab office space
· Value addition effort to meet the minimum shelter standards.
· Easy safe access to the settlement sites and camps
· Planned drainage facility to the siteProvision for water disposals and management

Long Term Shelter Needs

· Provision of Safe and dignified permanent shelter in accordance with the state building byelaws
· Easy access or Establishment of essential civic and public facilities and services available within the neighborhood settlement or as per the state or international standards of settlement planning
· Easy access to water and sanitation facilities at per household basis.
· More sustainable and durable water-supply and waste disposal system
· Provision of Community based development and livelihood related infrastructure facilities.
· Provision of essential village / neighborhood infrastructure.
· Land ownership documents and establishment of an address
· Regular monitoring and maintenance schedule of the public infrastructures established and managed by the local authorities.
· Provision of a safe and well defined children play and recreational areas ensured.A safe guard to environment and its conservation is ensured.