The Tsunami of December 2004 devastated the settlements over 90% of the coast of Sri Lanka. The eastern district of Ampara was the worst affected area by the tsunami. Altogether 25,770 houses were either completely destroyed or damaged. Even after one year most of these families were languishing in temporary camps with an uncertain future. The project was designed to help 290 families to rebuild their houses and another 290 repair their houses in Ampara and another 100 in Trincomalee district. It was also proposed to implement the project in partnership with Muslim Foundation for Culture and Development, which is a strong people, based NGO already working in these areas.

The Government of the United Arab Emirates agreed to fund this project through the Red Crescent of UAE. As both UN-habitat and MFCD was working in these districts the preliminaries such as identification of beneficiaries and negotiations with the district level government officials commenced immediately and the project implementation commenced in April 2006.

During project formulation, due to the high need for housing it was decided to provide assistance to 850 families. However during project implementation, 1074 families in these two districts were assisted by the project to rebuild their shelters and infrastructure. Project was able to achieve this higher target by working very closely and in harmony with government institutions at the field level and by adopting a people centered approach.