Partnering for Families in Coastal India

Men build a canal to drain sea water from farming lands, part of a Mercy Corps-funded DHAN project. Photo: John Stephens/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is restoring livelihoods and ensuring a better, more secure future for many of the estimated 890,000 tsunami-affected residents of the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu.

Our initial response focused on delivering lifesaving aid to more than 44,000 people in need. Mercy Corps distributed household kits and food to over 3,300 families, built more than 400 temporary shelters and connected farmers in tsunami-affected areas with farmers in the inland district of Madurai to accelerate agricultural land restoration.

As part of shaping a longer-term response to the disaster, Mercy Corps recently formed a collaboration with the DHAN Foundation - an established, locally based and innovative nonprofit - to provide assistance to 20 coastal agricultural communities in Nagapattinam, the district most severely impacted by the December 26 tsunami.

Residents of Nagapattinam's 5.4-square-mile area accounted for nearly three-quarters of India’s 8,000 tsunami-related deaths. The tsunami also devastated these communities, already reeling from recent floods that followed three years of reduced rainfall, by destroying crops ready for harvest, flooding fields with salt-water and silt, and wiping out livestock.

DHAN, which shares Mercy Corps commitment to community-driven development efforts, is using a $250,000 Mercy Corps grant to restore and strengthen the livelihoods of these vulnerable agricultural communities through projects that include:

• Constructing ten community structures such as kitchens, community meeting spaces and rural cluster offices
• Draining 240 hectares of arable land inundated by ocean saltwater
• De-silting and reconstructing 100 drainage channels
• Distributing tools, seeds and fertilizer to farmers
• Teaching farmers how to cultivate salt-tolerant crops and market their harvests to producers and traders
• Providing 80 non-fishing families with goats or a cow
• Rehabilitating 60 individual farm ponds to harvest rainwater and irrigate surrounding land

Over the next six months, DHAN’s work will provide continuous employment to 600 laborers and benefit 1,000 families.