Emergency Winterization Assistance to Rohingya (EWARR) 

 

 

Location: Teknaf, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

Donor: ADRA International, USA

Direct Beneficiaries: 

Total Beneficiaries: 4500 People

Project Duration: 15/09/2018 - 15/12/2018

Total Budget: 8,099,989.00

NGO Bureau Approval Date: 08/10/2018

NGO Bureau  Approval Reference No. : 03.09.2666.657.657.69.142.18-531

 

 

Project Goal:

 

To provide humanitarian assistance to Rohingya Refugees by filling humanitarian gaps that causes serious life threats to women, children, and men during winter.

 

 

Key Activities:

 

• Distribution of Culturally appropriate individual winter clothing’s to women, children, and men (clothing to children, winter shawls to women and men) 

• Distribution of Bedding materials ( 2 Blankets measuring 7’X6’ and 1-floor mat ( measuring 7’ X 7’) 

• Procurement and distribution of bamboo, ropes and tools and equipment for the household level cot. 

• Procurement and establishment of the sewing machine in the camp engaging women for income generation activities. 

• Procurement and distribution of required fabric and thread to be used for the sewing machine. 

• Training on dos and don’ts during winter targeting women, children, and elders. 

• Engaging a skilled man for bamboo cot making ensuring income generation activities.

 

 

Project Description:

 

Since August 2017, the violence against Rohingya communities in Rakhine state in Myanmar has forced Rohingya people especially women and children to flee their homes and take shelter in neighboring country Bangladesh. According to Needs and Population Monitoring (NPM) data, as on 21st June 2018, Total 919,000 Rohingya refugees (212,515 families) have taken shelter in Cox’s Bazar and this exodus has become one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world. The Bangladesh Government have kept its border open for Rohingya refugees and allowing humanitarian response to provide lifesaving support.

 

A Total of 626,000 refugees have settled in Kutupalong Balukhali expansion site, 15000 refugees have taken shelter in host communities and 278,000 refugees are living in other settlements/camps.  The refugees that have crossed the border for the safety of their life have come empty-handed with no personal belongings and are entirely dependent on external support for their survival and meet basic needs. It is estimated that humanitarian assistance is required for almost 1.3 million people this includes 336,000 Bangladeshi residing in unions hosting refugees in Ukhia and Teknaf. Total 5 subdistricts ((Palong Khali, Whykong, Nhilla, Teknaf, and Ukhia) in Cox’s Bazar district have accommodated all these refugees. There is tremendous pressure in existing settlements which are already overcrowded with the total population of refugees in Cox’s Bazar reaching 919,000 people. Existing settlements including Kutupalong, Balukhali, Leda, and Shamlapur are becoming dangerously congested. Organizations are struggling to scale up the services in this rapidly expanding and new site and to cover the huge number of people needing humanitarian assistance. Scaling up support is still a challenge as the basic needs are still unmet and new needs are arising simultaneously with the change in weather and situation. Along with the Bangladesh Government, a total of 101 different agencies (12 UN agencies, 50 INGOs and 39 national NGOs) are active in providing support to address various needs of the refugee communities. Despite the ongoing operations by the humanitarian organizations, the humanitarian gap is clearly visible in the sectors such as Shelter /NFIs, education, Protection especially child protection, Nutrition targeting children, pregnant and lactating women. In the Shelter/NFI components, organizations are mostly focusing on providing shelter materials, upgrading and repairing of damaged shelters, whereas the gap in NFIs is huge. For example, 93% of shelter upgrading is achieved, whereas basic NFIs have a gap of more than 66 %. The women, children, and elders struggle to cope with the changing weather (monsoon, winter, and summer) due to lack of suitable clothing, beddings, kitchen utensils, etc.

 

Under the education sector, out of the total need of 3500 learning spaces for children and youth, only 34 % is achieved and has a 66 % gap. The situation is more or less the same in protection and Child protection sector due to lack of expertise on psychosocial counseling by various organizations working in the camps. In WASH components only 66% of the populations have access to safe drinking water meeting minimum agreed standards and 44 % of people are still struggling to cope with the gap that can cause water-borne diseases like diarrhea, cholera affecting mostly children and women and elders. Out of the total 919,000 people only 684,540 women, men and children in the settlements are benefitting from functional latrines to an agreed standard which shows there is a significant gap of 25% and if we add the host community people living in some of those areas, the total gap will rise to 35 %, which means from the total target of 1,052,495people, 368373 people do not have access to latrine facilities possessing greater risk to the whole population. As reported by the Inter-Sectoral Coordination group, 10% of the water samples collected from 1651 water points from different areas shows E.Coli value ranging 1 to 100 putting communities at higher risk. Most of the fecal contamination is related to improper hygiene practices and occurred during water collection, transportation, and storage.

 

The vulnerability level is much higher in women, children, and elders who face more challenges in terms of access to services and basic facilities. Out of the total refugee population (919,000), 52 % (477,880) are female, 48% (441120) are male, among them 54.6 % (501,774) are children between 0-17 years old. The ongoing monsoon has a severe impact on shelters, hygiene and sanitation condition, damaging pathways, causing soil erosion and landslides putting refugee communities into more risk & vulnerability especially to children and women. Forthcoming winter will make the situation worse as they have a very minimum coping mechanism and capacity. The humanitarian needs and challenges are ongoing as the refugees are living in temporary settlements having no scope of livelihood opportunities, no adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities, no adequate facilities for children for their education and recreation for their overall development, health issue possesses greater life risk, women and minor girls are more vulnerable to GBV and other abuse and exploitation, entire camp area is vulnerable to disaster like cyclone, flood, and risk of wide spreading communicable diseases.