Christmas Appeal: Digging deep after the Tsunami

Ajanta Chulam Perera has one of the most unusual houses in Sri Lanka. It is a simple, single-storey cottage but in one of the side walls is a jali - an elaborate pattern of bricks and interspersing gaps - which looks as if it would be more in place on the Taj Mahal than on the home of a humble casual labourer.

But the jali is not a decorous ornamentation. It is part of a pioneering design in housing which is transforming the lives of thousands of people whose homes were devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami, the worst natural disaster of modern times.

It is almost a year since a huge wave of water - in places up to 90ft high - was sent crashing towards coastal communities in 12 countries by a massive underwater earthquake in the early hours of Boxing Day. It devastated much of the region, killing at least 200,000 people and making half a million homeless.

Humanitarian relief efforts were widely praised in the first few months after the disaster. Clean-up operations were launched and the threat of epidemics was averted. Roads and railways were repaired. But almost 12 months later, the picture is still bleak for hundreds of thousands of survivors who are still living in tents, improvised shelters of plastic and branches or amid the ruins of their former homes with no shelter from the monsoon rains.

Almost a million people across the disaster zone still depend on a monthly ration of rice, vegetable oil and canned fish from the World Food Programme.

Much of the $4bn (£2.3bn) in international aid pledged in the weeks after the tsunami has not materialised. In Sri Lanka, the second worst-hit country after Indonesia, at least 30,000 people died and more than 80,000 houses were destroyed. Yet after 11 months, a mere 1,126 replacement homes have been completed with another 15,619 in various stages of construction.

One of the organisations which is delivering help is Practical Action, a British charity. Formerly known as the Intermediate Technology Development Group, it specialises in simple, ingenious low-tech solutions to the problems of Third World poverty. It is one of the three charities which have been chosen by The Independent as the focus of our Christmas Appeal, A Better Place, which is being launched today. The other two are Children in Crisis and Education Action International. All three charities share a bold and innovative approach to assisting people that the rest of the world tends to forget.

Mrs Ajanta Chulam Perera, with her unusual house in Sri Lanka, is a typical beneficiary of the Practical Action approach. Where other aid agencies have tried to build more substantial versions of the traditional houses swept away in the disaster - a solution which has tended to founder because the designs are too expensive - Practical Action, working with Sri Lankan partner organisations, has come up with something radical, quicker to build, of higher quality and much cheaper.

The traditional Sri Lankan house is made of wood covered in plaster to insulate against the heat. Practical Action's version is built of exposed brick. The trick is that the walls are hollow - a large gap between two layers of brick insulates as well as plaster, but it's free. The roof is a single slab of concrete bought cheaply from big construction projects: the thick concrete keeps the sun off, and ensures the house remains cool.

Instead of fitting a window, the charity's designers have built the jali screen-work of bricks, with gaps to let in ventilation and light. So Mrs Perera's house - despite having no air conditioning or even a fan - remains cool, when all the neighbouring houses are sweltering in the midday heat.

The designers have learnt on the job. Next door to Mrs Perera lives Chandrika Bogawahatta. Her jali screen makes her home look even more luxurious. It is an intricately-pierced plaster screen which the designers came up with when it was discovered that small animals could squeeze through the gaps in the brickwork of the prototype. "Compared to my old house, this is like heaven," Mrs Bogawahatta said.

The new building scheme is helping to boost the local economy, which collapsed when tens of thousands of fishing boats were destroyed. " Practical Action have not only built me a house," says Mrs Perera. "They've provided a livelihood for my husband." Her husband, Manjula, was a casual labourer before the tsunami. Now he has been trained to build the hollow-brick walls, and he makes a better living than before.

The charity is also helping to rebuild the local fishing industry. Again, attempts by bigger agencies to provide new boats failed because they tried to foist one design of boat on everyone. In Sri Lanka, different coastal areas have always used different designs of boats: small shallow boats for prawn fishing, bigger boats that can go out farther for deep sea fish, and so on.

Practical Action has trained local men, such as Chandana Kumara, to mass-produce copies of the local design using a simple fibreglass mould. The result is that fishermen are getting back out to sea, and Mr Kumara and others have been trained in a new trade, moulding and painting the fibreglass in the traditional bright reds, blues and greens favoured by Sri Lankan fishermen.

The charity is also working on rebuilding the fish-processing industry. Y G Kusumawathie is pushing 60, and it is many years since she left school, but today she is back in a classroom, being taught basic business skills. For years, she has been running her own small business drying fish at home, to supplement her husband's income as a fisherman.

Ms Kusumawathie wants to expand her business to double her output, transforming her casual, home-run operation into a proper business. She has a share in a new machine dryer, paid for by Practical Action.

But the classes have been even more useful, she says. "They taught me how to make a business plan," she says. "Before everything was haphazard, we were just improvising."

The problem remains huge, but comparatively small charities are making a difference. And because they ensure that their solutions are both low cost and easily replicable by other poor people, entire communities are being rebuilt.

The change is local but incremental, and slowly the world becomes a better place.

The devastated nations

INDONESIA

Total Population: 225.3 million

Number dead: 128,000

Number missing: 40,000

Number homeless: 500,000

Indonesia suffered the worst losses and damage of all countries affected by the tsunami. Coastal villages are though to have lost more than 70 per cent of inhabitants. The region's fishing industry has slumped due to fewer boats as well as rising petrol prices.

In the Aceh province, only 25 per cent of the pre-tsunami buildings remain. Land ownership issues mean many displaced people are still living in temporary shelter.

SRI LANKA

Total population: 19.4 million

Number dead: 31,000

Number homeless: 100,000

Number missing: 4,000

In the wake of the international aid effort, £1.5bn has been pledged to rebuild coastal towns. But this has been hampered by conflict between the central government and Tamil Tiger rebels. Sri Lanka has also come under criticism for a slow rate of regeneration. Just 3,200 houses out of a projected 80,000 had been built by the end of July.

INDIA

Total Population: 1.1 billion

Number dead: 8,850

Number homeless: 70,000

Nearly 90 percent of the victims were killed in Tamil Nadu. Recent heavy rains have added to the problems of those displaced by the tsunami. By the end of September, over 20,000 acres of agricultural fields in the area were damaged by rainfall. In India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, salt water has contaminated fresh water and destroyed arable land. The military is working without international aid to get supplies to the area.

THAILAND

Total population: 64.1 million

Number dead: 5,104

Number homeless: 70,000

The most affected areas were the southern islands of Phuket, Khao Lak and Phi Phi, popular tourist destinations that have since suffered from lower visitor rates. Thailand has refused international debt relief. Instead, it has proposed tax breaks for Thai products and asked for help with identifying the dead.

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