Kalinchok Rural
Municipality, Ward No. 3, Lamidada, Dolakha
Sita
Biswokarma is a farmer from a Dalit community who has been growing maize,
millet and paddy in a small land plot that she owns in her village, as well as
keeping goats and cattle. She also takes occasional work as a farm worker. When
the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake struck, Sita was alone in the house working on the
farm. Her husband was in Kathmandu where he was working as mason, and her three
children were on the way to Charikot to attend their higher education
examination. The family’s two- storey house collapsed in the earthquake, but
Sita managed to escape without injury.
She was very anxious about her family
but eventually managed to find out they were ok and in a safe place.
After spending
the months after the earthquake living in temporary shelter, Sita and her family
moved into their new home in April 2017. The house, which cost approximately
500,000 NPRs to build and took four months to complete, incorporates earthquake
resistant materials and construction techniques. Sita feels that the new house
provides safety and security and their lives have improved greatly after moving
out of the temporary shelter and into their house. The extreme cold during
winter and the rains during monsoon made life in the temporary shelter very
difficult. Sita received support throughout the reconstruction process from a
mobile team from the Baliyo Ghar programme, implemented by the National Society
for Earthquake Technology with funding from USAID.
Sita kept in
touch with the mobile team of Baliyo Ghar for every step and feels she would
have not been able to rebuild without this continuous support. So far Sita has
received all the tranches of the Government of Nepal housing reconstruction
grant. She takes great satisfaction in owning a home that she can feel
confident is safe in the face of future earthquakes.
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Ms. Sita Biswakarma busy
working in her house at Lamidada.
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