The Programme collaborated with Habitat for Humanity in the implementation of rainwater harvesters in Tobago. Habitat for Humanity’s project which is entitled  “Safe Shelter through Landslide Mitigation” is in collaboration with Tobago Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) and aims to reduce the vulnerability of households in landslide prone areas by improving shelter safety through the building of landslide mitigation measures, including retaining walls, rainwater harvesters and tree and groundcover plantings, with technical support and community training.

The main changes that the project was designed to bring about are:

1.   Community of Moriah will acquire the critical technical knowledge and practical experience so that they are able to lead the implementation of sustainable landslide mitigation measures and will be able to fill a technical assistance gap left by limited TEMA capacity and resources.
2.   Increased social capital and self-reliance for the management of local hazards and vulnerabilities instilled through the skills building and hands-on experience, as well as responsibility for maintenance of projects.  Communities will have experienced ownership of a project.
3.   Improved natural resource management and community stewardship of critical land resources, supported by knowledge and skills acquired to protect the hillsides over the long-term from landslides; stabilized hillsides.
4.   Safer shelter:  landslide mitigation projects will increase household safety and protect both lives and livelihoods from future landslides.

The Adopt A River Programme assisted by providing the rainwater harvesters which would provide an augmented water supply as part of the social resilience training provided. The project outputs included:

• 10 Retaining walls serving 50 persons;
• 5 Rainwater harvesting systems serving 25 persons; 1
• Community project (bathroom facilities for Community Centre) serving at least 400 persons;
• 100 trees planted;

and 50 persons trained in one or more landslide mitigation technique (retaining wall construction and maintenance, rainwater harvesting system construction and maintenance, tree and ground cover planting and care), with a total of 400 persons served.

The programme was able to contribute 3 of the 5 rainwater harvesters towards the project.