It was six o’clock on a rainy evening. It’s been 14 years, but Venkamma remembers it like it was yesterday.

“It wasn’t the first time there was a storm, but it was the first time I felt afraid. I was at home with my daughters and daughters-in-law. They had all recently given birth, so four babies were sleeping when the water came with force,” she remembers. It was then that the group of women saw the round bamboo boats used by fishermen – crossing the rivers that had become the streets of their village. 

“For the 2009 floods, our emergency teams distributed basic necessities like food, blankets and water, and we knew we had to do more. The RDT Housing Programme had been continuing for years, but this was the first time we built houses because of a flood,” says Shekhar, the RDT Regional Engineer who has been working in the area for 24 years.

For Venkamma, 2009 was a bittersweet year. “On the one hand, I was overcome with sadness. I had lost everything I had, not only what was inside the house but also my livelihood. It took us months to be able to cultivate our land again”, she says. “But it was also a year that changed my life for the better. RDT built the new houses in the women’s names. Suddenly, I went from having nothing to owning a house,” says Venkamma with pride.

Dignified housing serves as a cornerstone for equipping individuals with self-confidence and self-sufficiency. RDT works to reduce the impact of natural calamities through the construction of housing infrastructure for rural communities.

Text and Images: Katia Álvarez Charro