A few days into the New Year, villagers in the provinces of Rizal and Laguna are busy settling into their new homes. Small makeshift decorations hang from the roofs of the blue and yellow houses of people who last year spent the holiday season in evacuation centres or on the streets wondering if they would ever have a home to call their own again.

Last December 2010, IOM Philippines and its partners turned over a last batch of 73 transitional shelters to families affected by a series of tropical storms which battered the Philippines in late 2009.

An estimated 20,000 families were affected when Typhoon Ketsana (known locally as Ondoy) dumped a month's worth of rain on the country in a matter of hours.

The neck-high floods had barely begun to recede when another storm, Typhoon Santi, hit just one month later. Rizal and Laguna, located on the shores of the largest lake in the country, were among the hardest hit.

"Our house was completely washed out. All that was left was the flooring," said Wendelyn Jandoc, a beneficiary from Laguna who along with her husband and three sons, sought refuge in an evacuation centre before moving in with relatives.

The storms also destroyed their livelihood. Wendelyn's husband, Juan, lost his job as the caretaker of a duck farm and had to move to Manila to provide for his family. Although the city is just three hours away, the cost of transport prevented him from returning home everyday.

Wendelyn, who is as a seamstress, lost her sewing machine to the flood. "We couldn't rebuild our home because our children are still studying. We had no extra money because we had to focus on their schooling needs," she said.

IOM Philippines responded to flood survivors' needs by launching a Typhoon Emergency Response Programme (TERP), which included provision of transitional housing and a component to help people to restart their livelihoods.

"A home is more than four walls and a roof. A home, no matter how simple, represents roots, security and dignity. Without it, survivors of calamities find it extremely difficult to re-claim their lives after everything they owned has been lost," said IOM Philippines Project Officer Dave Bercasio.

Wendelyn’s family, living in a danger zone and with nowehere else to go, was one of 270 selected from four villages to receive a transitional shelter and help to restart their livelihoods from the TERP.

The project was funded by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), and supported by the NGO Habitat for Humanity and local government agencies.

Wendelyn's eight metre square transitional shelter is built from marine plywood and concrete and is constructed to meet internationally recognized SPHERE standards. It has a toilet, but the family have to share other facilities.

Most importantly, the house is located at a safe distance from Laguna de Bay, which in recent years has begun to violently overflow during the typhoon season."

Families who received the shelters contributed to the project by helping to clear the land and haul materials to the site.

"I made my husband take a leave from his work so he could help with the building," Wendelyn said. Juan was scheduled to return to his regular job after the handover of the shelters.

Beneficiary families also received livelihood assistance from IOM in the form of business start-up grants. The Jandocs received P15,000 ($343), half of which went towards purchasing a new sewing machine for Wendelyn.

The remainder went towards buying processed meats, which Wendelyn now sells. With her earnings, she purchases more stock to ensure that she and her family always have a steady income.

Other TERP project beneficiaries received equipment for starting small businesses, including pedicabs, stoves, for eateries and ice boxes for fish vending.

"We’re very thankful for the shelters," says Wendelyn. "Without them, we’d just keep trying to survive but now the real recovery can begin. Every family needs a home they can return to. My children will transfer to the school here which is just outside the site. I’m happy they have a place they can call home again".