Working with Habitat for Humanity
Created in the late 1980s, Global Village has prepared and sent hundreds of teams to almost fifty countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Carribean and North America to help build houses.
Habitat houses are built by people who have donated their money and time to those in need. The new homeowners contribute to more houses and Habitat families through a programme called “sweat equity” and mortgage payments on their no-interest house loans.
Such a programme exists on the Filipino island of Pallawan, in a small fishing community called Baranguay. Some forty houses have already been constructed since the project began five years ago. Previous to this construction, locals were living on a strip of marsh which was subject to flooding and which didn’t belong to them. The houses were rickety and on stilts.
Ours was the first international group to visit this site, and what a welcome we received under armed guard. We spend four days on site, helping build a house with the family who would live in the house and the materials our donations bought. The methods were basic but effective, if grueling. Tasks were digging foundations, making blocks, block-laying and shoveling sand — all this in sweltering heat and with fragile nails. Corny it may sound, it was the jovial children and the welcoming locals who made the trip what it was. It’s the amazement of seeing people react to you like you’re actually someone special when you know yourself that you set upon this trip begrudgingly. For me, this was my first charitable endeavour. I think that I got far more from my time there than I gave. I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Seeing is believing. For more information consult the Habitat for Humanity website.