International relief agency Christian Aid has so far built more than 20,000 new permanent homes and helped more than 185,000 people back to work since the devastating Asian tsunami two years ago.

Altogether Christian Aid helped 290,000 people in 2006 and since the tsunami has spent more than £29m in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka on water, food, medicines, housing and training. Another £13m will be spent by the end of 2007.

In addition, nearly 8,400 fishing boats have been repaired, while 53,000 people have received trauma counselling.

Many of the houses funded by Christian Aid were built by tsunami survivors themselves. For example in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu grants were given to 5,646 families in 51 villages to rebuild their houses.

The money was given in instalments so that at each stage of construction inspectors could check homeowners were building to disaster-resistant standards. When people are involved in building their own homes in this way it helps to ensure the houses are built to the highest standards.

In addition, Christian Aid concentrated on making sure the poorest and most vulnerable communities got the help they needed with the money raised through the generosity of the public in Britain and Ireland.

"We decided to focus our efforts on particularly helping the most vulnerable," said Anthony Morton-King, Christian Aid's Tsunami Programme Manager.

"In India Christian Aid is helping to ensure Dalits get the aid they have a right to receive, in Indonesia we have helped some of the poorest people affected by the tsunami who live on the island of Nias and in Sri Lanka we are helping those who are also affected by the conflict."

For example in Rettaikuttai village in Tamil Nadu, a Christian Aid partner is helping 22 Dalit (formerly called Untouchables) families who did not receive any compensation from the government after their homes were destroyed. We have helped them rebuild their homes, provided safe drinking water and set up a self-help group for women.

While continuing to focus on rebuilding shelter for tsunami affected communities, Christian Aid has expanded its work to ensure that communities will be better prepared to face other disasters, particularly by strengthening local communications so people can use early warning systems.

In September Christian Aid held workshops in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and London with all its tsunami partner organisations to discuss what went well and what could have been done better in its tsunami response - the biggest emergency response its history.

"We wanted to make sure that we really do learn lessons from the tsunami, so that we can deal better with future emergencies," said Mr Morton-King.