This is a part of the situation report circulated through lk-relief.
The Humanitarian Information Centre (HIC) is now posting on its website theweekly meeting schedules of UN agencies, INGOs, NGOs and governmentagencies in Colombo and Batticaloa districts. Schedules for the up-comingweek are to be posted each Friday. HIC is in the process of assembling suchscheduling information for other districts as well. The HIC website - whichis at www.humanitarianinfo/srilanka.org -- also posts UN agency and NGOsitreps and other reports and data. The website will soon also include adatabase with essential contact information for UN agencies and NGOs ineach province and district. Those organizations that would like to beincluded on the database should contact Sweeni Jinadasa at HIC. Email her at <jinadasa@un.org> or telephone: 011 259 1118 / 259 1314-16.
UNHCR Ampara has initiated a pilot project with the Rural DevelopmentFoundation (RDF), its key shelter implementing partner, to build 42shelters with locally purchased materials. Twenty-seven shelters are to bebuilt on land not owned by the beneficiaries and fifteen on their own land.The structures which are to be completed by mid-March are intended torelieve some of the crowding in temporary shelters. The pilot project hasbeen initiated in the context of various delays experienced in the delivery and, particularly, regarding approval for land use.
UNHCR and UNICEF are conducting a rapid protection assessment in the East,North and South of Sri Lanka to determine the preferences of beneficiariesregarding their relocation. Twelve enumerators are conducting in-depthinterviews with IDPs in both transitional accommodation centres and at theresidences of host families. The rapid assessment will be completed by theend of this month.WFP reports that in all the tsunami-affected districts more than 90 percent of beneficiaries have now been issued coupon cards by the governmentwhich enable them to receive allotments of food and cash. According to WFPthe total number of people needing food assistance in February was 852,500with WFP providing food - transported and distributed by governmentagencies -- to 850,000. Other agencies supply food assistance to theremainder of the recipients. WFP has distributed some 19,200 metric tonssince 28 December, with 2,397 metric tons of food distributed daily from 18to 23 February.WFP, World Vision and the MRRR (Ministry of Relief, Rehabilitation andReconciliation) will begin on 1 March a supplementary feeding programme,through primary schools in the nine districts affected by the tsunami --Ampara, Trincomalee, Matara, Hambantota, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Jaffna,Galle and Batticaloa. The programme will run for an initial two-monthperiod in 171 schools and is expected to reach a total of 34,404 children,ages five-to-ten-years old.WFP has been training warehouse staff in Galle, Matara and Hambantotadistricts in the appropriate handling of food aid commodities as per itsinternational standards; and in WFP standard documentation routinesregarding waybills, stock registries and data reconciliation of tonnagesarrived, dispatched and distributed. The staff being trained are employees of WFP's main implementing partner, the MRRR.",
of imported shelter material and because of complications in coordinationand, particularly, regarding approval for land use.
