Interview with Sandra D'Urzo - Senior Shelter Officer at IFRC Geneva.

Sandra D'Urzo IFRC (right) and Jaime Royo-Olid EU (left) two experienced shelter and settlement experts at a PASSA workshop in Colombo last week. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Delighted to have Sandra D'Urzo from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies headquarters in Geneva visit the north of Sri Lanka in the past two weeks. Have a look at her interview on Shelter, Settlement and PASSA.

A permanent house with a transitional shelter attached to the rear in Aceh Indonesia. Red Cross built 20,000 transitional and 20,000 permanent houses after the Asian Tsunami. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Graham Saunders gives an introuduction to PASSA

Shelter and settlement risks and vulnerabilities are on the
increase due to changes in disaster trends, the impact of climate
change, as well as growing social and economic marginalisation
and urbanisation. At the same time, institutional resources to
support safe and adequate housing are declining because of
global financial constraints, the move towards smaller, less
interventionist government, and the scale of the challenges
faced. Households and communities that were previously able
to safeguard their lives and assets using their own resources
and know-how are increasingly finding that the type, scale and
frequency of the hazards they are now being exposed to pose a
severe threat to their safety and well-being.
Major disasters often, but not always, generate sufficient funding
for the required reconstruction and recovery. This can promote
the need to ‘build back better’; however, this is the exception.
With disaster trends indicating a move towards more frequent
small and medium-scale emergencies, the majority of households
affected by such localized disasters have to draw upon their own
limited resources, and invariably rebuild the same vulnerabilities.
There is no active presence to promote better practices in
mitigation and limited or no financial or technical support to
incorporate sustainable approaches to building resilience. What
can be done in such contexts, with unlimited needs but very
limited external resources?

A participatory approach to safe shelter awareness (PASSA)
aims to raise the awareness of the ‘everyday vulnerable’ of the
‘everyday risks’ related to their built environment and foster
locally appropriate safe shelter and settlement practices. It
offers a simple process, facilitated by the Red Cross Red Crescent

volunteers and technical advisors, through which communities International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies can build upon
 their own insights, skills and leadership to attain
improved living conditions and safer habitats.

Community participation is a crucial factor to success. here is a grievance meeting in Mannar Sri Lanka where people have a chance to discuss about those who got houses, and those who missed out.

Using a step-by-step methodology, PASSA utilizes three
complementary processes. Firstly, it harnesses the established role
of the National Societies to support community-led and socially
inclusive development activities. Secondly, it enables communities
to identify their own solutions and realistic and comprehensive
strategies for addressing the myriad of problems that include
spatial and environmental planning, local building cultures and
the effectiveness of local construction techniques. Thirdly, it
fosters partnerships between local authorities, communities and
supporting organizations to prepare for, cope with and recover
from disasters.
The expertise of construction specialists is needed throughout
the process, to respond to technical issues arising and to help
manage the expectations of communities and households on
modifications to houses and the surrounding settlement. These
professionals work collaboratively with social mobilizers to
promote awareness, bring coherence to the risk-management
efforts and ensure the technical performance of the safe shelter
and settlement solutions identified.
PASSA draws upon the well-established practice of community
action planning, and the participatory hygiene and sanitation
transformation (PHAST) methodology used by many National
Societies. With IFRC’s vulnerability and capacity assessment
(VCA) to provide an overall analysis of a community’s needs
and assets, PASSA is the participatory tool to comprehensively
identify and safeguard against shelter and settlement risks.9
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Foreword Participatory Approach for Safe Shelter Awareness
The use of PASSA valuably informs both individual and
community understanding of vulnerability related to the built
environment, and leads to the identification and promotion
of locally appropriate measures to achieve safer shelter and settlement.

Help protect the elephants, help protect the people in Sri Lanka.

A wild elephant near Nugelanda village. The elephants have been forced out of their natural habitats as a result of illegal logging.








Our work in Sri Lanka varies from supporting internally displaced people in the north, finishing many tsunami construction projects such as schools, hospitals and community facilities for the many housing estates we built, flood victims etc., but I never thought we would get involved with elephants. But now we are. My Communications and Reporting Manager, Mahieash Johnney wrote this article which I share with you.

Save the elephants, protect the people: Donate now: http://www.redcross.lk/make-an-online-donation.asp

When the sun goes down for the day people in Nugelanda, Ampara, Sri Lanka, begins a battle, a battle against nature, a battle against a giant, a battle to stay alive. For over 10 years these people have shared the same space with the wild elephants and managed to co-exist while cultivating and living their lives.

However since the reserves in and around Nugelanda began to fall victim to illegal loggers and others who clear land for illegal cultivation, these wild jumbos began to move into areas where people inhabit.

During the months from August to October the invasion from wild elephants into Nugelanda village has increased drastically, due to the crop season for the paddy cultivated in the area. Once the villages harness their crops they store the paddy in their houses prior to selling. Wild elephants are attracted to the smell of paddy and invade the village in order to eat it and destroying everything that gets in its way.

Human tragedy

For the past two months over 13 people have been killed by wild elephant attacks in Nugelanda and at the adjacent 39th Colony villages. In one instance a family living in the 39th Colony, comprising 3 women 3 children and a man also experienced a wild elephant attack which left 3 dead.

Ranjani who is 38 years old has been living in the 39th Colony for over 15 years. They have witnessed the area go under the control of the LTTE and also the Government military’s offensive to clear the area.



Ranjani stands near the wall of her house that was crushed by a wild elephant, which resulted in the death of her mother.

They are no strangers to wild elephant attacks as the little hut they live in has in many times been crushed by several wild elephants, one of the many reasons for them to rebuild the hut with clay.

On the 15th of October 2010, after dinner all in Ranjani’s family squeezed into the hut in order to get some sleep. At around 11 in the night they heard as to something is passing by their house. Minutes later the left wall, the one which here mother was sleeping close to collapsed and a wild elephant crashed into the hut. Her feeble mother who was sleeping close by couldn’t even get up and run, before that the wild elephant put its paw and crushed her to death.

"It was a horrific experience to see such a wild animal inside our house. We didn’t even have time to help my mother, she was close to the wall the elephant crushed her in front of our eyes” said Ranjani with a tear in her eye.

At this moment everyone else in the house started to scream and managed to scare the elephant away. However it was too late for Ranjani’s mother, who was killed on the spot by the wild elephant. Two of her children were also severely injured when the wall fell over them.

Wild elephant attacks

With the reduction of their habitats elephant populations have broken up and some herds have got pocketed in small patches of jungle. With their movement restricted, especially when food and water resources are depleted, elephants wander into new cultivated areas, which were their former habitat, in search of food. Elephants find ready source of food in these cultivated areas, but wild elephants are unwelcome neighbors in agricultural areas.

This has often been viewed as the crux of the human-elephant conflict. Since 1950, a minimum of 4,200 elephants have perished in the wild as a direct result of the conflict between man and elephant in Sri Lanka. The conflict has escalated in the recent past. During the last twelve years alone, a total of 1,464 elephants were killed, with 672 humans being killed by elephants. (Data from Department of Wildlife Conservation)

In Nugelanda and in the 39th Colony around 13 people were killed the most recent have been a 17 year old boy who went to the market to buy fish. On his way home he met with a wild elephant that has smashed him on the road. He was hospitalized with severe injuries and later succumbed to them.


Nugelanda village has recently suffered an increase in elephant attacks, particularly during harvest time. Rice paddy is stored in houses before being sold. Elephants are attracted to the smell, and destroy everything that gets in their

Red Cross action

Currently the Ampara branch of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society has already begun helping these people to combat this treat of wild elephants. As an immediate measure due to the influx of threat of these wild beasts, they have begun to distribute a high powerful torches which has been the only effective solution in order to chase away the elephants.

“We are in the process of putting a more effective plan to work in these areas. Of course funding has been an issue. What we suggest is empowering the villages by giving them torch lights and also helping them to come up with a risk reduction plan by helping them to build store rooms so that the wild elephants will not break into the houses” says Nilanka Dissanayake, the Disaster Risk Reduction Programme Manager of Sri Lanka Red Cross Society’s Ampara branch.

Further on he said that the branch is also in conversation with the Wild Life Authority about an electric fence covering an area of 7km covering two villages, the Nugelanda village and the 39th Colony



The Ampara branch of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society has started to distribute a powerful torch which has proved the only effective way to chase away the elephants.

The Branch Executive Officer of the Ampara SLRCS branch Prashantha Udaya Kumara says “We know that there is much to do. Step by step we are helping these people to combat this crisis. We do have several obstacles to overcome, like finding proper funding for a task like this. However we will do the needful to help these vulnerable people”

Meanwhile the branch has also completed a disaster preparedness plan with the aid from German Red Cross covering 6 areas of the district looking into various disasters like flooding, drought, wild elephant attacks and ramifications of global warming.



Wild elephants enjoy the space  and food to graze, well away from people. Your donations can help give elephants a better life, and help protect people who are regularly killed by elephant attacks.