New Funding Provides Transitional Shelters for Kenya's Displaced
Vulnerable households displaced by post-election violence earlier
this year will benefit from transitional shelters thanks to new
funding from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
The USD 500,000 contribution will benefit 700 extremely
vulnerable families, including persons with serious medical
conditions, the elderly, female-headed households and orphans, who
for the past eight months have been living in dismal conditions in
more than 100 minimally assisted transit sites.
"In three districts of the North Rift Valley, IOM is carrying
out in-depth household assessments through its psychosocial
programme to identify particularly vulnerable families," says
Jerotich Seii Houlding, IOM's Emergency Response Officer. "Once
identified, the families will then be provided with timber-framed,
corrugated iron-roofed transitional shelters, which they will
occupy as they rebuild their lives and livelihoods."
The violence, which followed Kenya's disputed general elections
in December 2007, led to the displacement of up to 500,000 people
and to the destruction of an estimated 40,000 homes.
Operation Rudi Nyumbani (Return Home), which was launched in May
following the formation of a Grand Coalition Government, has
allowed more than 200,000 IDPs to leave camps and host communities
to return to their pre-displacement homes, mainly in the Rift
Valley.
However, it is estimated that 60 per cent of all IDPs are
returning to damaged or destroyed homes, whilst an estimated 80,000
displaced who cannot return to their lands are forced to live under
plastic sheeting in transit sites, which lack the most basic
facilities and infrastructures.
IOM is appealing for an additional USD 3.5 million to provide
much needed shelter assistance to an additional 7,000 displaced
families.
For more information, please contact:
Jerotich Seii Houlding
IOM Nairobi
Tel: +254 20 4444 174/167
E-mail:
"mailto:jseiihoulding@iom.int">jseiihoulding@iom.int
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