#WeHelpNepal

Nepal is facing devastating floods and landslides in several areas, leaving communities in urgent need of longer-term shelter.

In Belkotgadhi Municipality (Wards 5, 7, and 8), 600 families have been affected — 65 lost everything, 150 were displaced from their homes, and the rest lost businesses or the family member who was their breadwinner. Over 200 displaced families are staying with relatives or in "holding centers" — a school building, a police building, a school dormitory, and a church — with no end date in sight for how long they'll be there.

Very little outside help has reached them so far: the government has provided food, UNICEF gave roughly $100 per family, and We Help Nepal has supplied tents to 20 families and cooking/hygiene supplies to 60. What's still urgently missing is secure storage for salvaged belongings, and — most critically — shelter that can bridge the gap until permanent housing is possible.

Helter Shelter is our answer to that gap: semi-permanent shelter kits, built and set up with the families themselves, using materials that are fully reusable once permanent homes are found, so nothing is wasted. Within the next week, we will be providing shelter to the 20 neediest families, and, if we can raise enough funds, expanding to another 20 families after that. 

What Your Donation Does

• Semi-Permanent Shelters — 6 meters by 4 meters, two-room units for the 20 neediest families, built with reusable materials so the investment isn't lost once families move to permanent housing.
• Bathrooms — each family needs a bathroom stall and wash stations, for basic sanitation and dignity.
• Storage Lockers — metal lockers so families have a secure place to keep whatever valuables and belongings they were able to salvage.

The Numbers

The materials for each shelter are $990, a portable bathroom unit is $350 including water tank, and a metal storage locker is $110.  

That's about $1,450 per family for a safe, secure, sanitary place to live until permanent housing is found.

Why Helter Shelter

We're working directly with Jagat Bahadur Gurung, Mayor of Belkotgadhi Municipality, based on his mid-September needs assessment, and coordinated on the ground by Kishor Lohani. Labor for construction is provided by the families themselves and local volunteers. These materials are fully reusable, so nothing purchased becomes waste once families transition to permanent housing.

The first 20 houses are being given to members of the Rai ethnic group, as they lost everything, and are the most impoverished of the displaced individuals. Some of them have small plots of land on which to build the temporary shelters, and a number of them will be settled on government land, as they have nowhere else to go.

A local community organization has agreed to supply bedding and some basic furniture, and the cooking equipment already donated by We Help Nepal can be used for the kitchen. The local government is also providing free use of a backhoe to dig the foundation holes and toilet pits.

Each shelter will require the following materials: 

• Roof structure - 24 pieces of 1⅕ × 1⅕ pipe, 1.4mm thick
• Corner posts - 4 pieces of 2 × 2 pipe, 1.4 mm thick
• Roofing - 22 pieces of 0.40 mm red corrugated galvanized sheet metal
• Exterior wall panels - 40 pieces of 0.36 mm plain galvanized sheet metal
• Internal wall panels - 5 pieces of 0.30 mm plain galvanized sheet metal
• 2 windows
• Door
• Bolts, Nuts, Rod, Cutting Wheels