Thursday 25 December 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
CHILE: Best Christmas
Gift - a New House,
Built by New Friends
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO (IPS) -
Before the volunteers
showed up at her house,
Pamela Peña was nervous.
She was embarrassed for
others to see the
poverty that her family
lived in. But once the
work started, she
relaxed and enjoyed the
unexpected Christmas
present.
The builders were 24
young professionals and
university graduates who
had set the goal of
building an
18-square-metre wooden
house with two windows
and a door in two days,
along with Peña -- a
40-year-old homemaker --
and her family.
The family lives in the
Juan Pablo II slum,
which is paradoxically
located in Lo Barnechea,
one of Santiago’s
wealthiest
neighbourhoods.
"When they told me, I
was so happy, but then I
felt ashamed because I
wouldn’t be able to
attend them properly. I
was thinking about the
bathroom, about the
food. But now I feel
great because I have
shared things with them
that have nothing to do
with money," Peña told
IPS on Sunday, Dec. 21,
as the finishing touches
were put on the new
house.
"It’s uncomfortable when
people with money come
to a house without
amenities," she said
over the noise of
hammering. "It’s kind of
embarrassing for them to
see your old things. But
they have been so sweet
and kind to us, it
wasn’t awkward at all;
they have been so
wonderful."
Under the Fundación Un
Techo para Chile (A Roof
for Chile Foundation), a
not-for-profit
organisation founded in
1997 by Jesuit priest
Felipe Berríos which
operates on the basis of
donations and volunteer
work, families, high
school or university
students, or companies
and their staff cover
the costs of the housing
materials and build a
simple wooden house
alongside the
beneficiary family.
The foundation takes
care of the purchasing
and transportation of
the materials, and its
staff members provide
advice in the field.
The two groups -- the
volunteer builders and
the beneficiary family
-- are introduced
several weeks before the
start of the
construction project and
receive an explanation
of the social principles
underlying the
foundation’s
initiatives.
Over the last decade, A
Roof for Chile, which
started out as a summer
project for student
volunteers, has built
nearly 33,000 homes
around the country.
The foundation’s
ultimate goal is to
eradicate slums by 2010
-- not by building small
wooden houses, but by
helping families apply
for state assistance and
subsidies for the
construction of solid
permanent dwellings as
part of new low-income
housing projects that
are gradually replacing
the country’s
shantytowns.
The foundation, whose
aim is to empower the
families as they help
create their own
neighbourhoods and
communities, provides
support, advice,
coordination and
supervision throughout
the process of obtaining
government housing funds
and suitable land, and
building the new
neighbourhoods.
The foundation’s
multidisciplinary team
of young professionals
works with government
agencies, universities,
and law practices,
design offices, real
estate agencies,
construction companies,
suppliers and other
private businesses to
create the new
communities.
"For us, the little
wooden houses we build
are emergency housing
for families in urgent
need of solutions --
people who need a decent
structure to live in
during the two years
that it takes on average
to build their permanent
new housing," Gabriel
Prudencio, the
foundation’s head of
construction, told IPS.
The initiative, which
has been replicated in
13 other nations of
Latin America under the
name Un Techo para mi
País (A Roof for My
Country), with 8,000
houses built so far, won
fourth place in November
in the Experiences in
Social Innovation
contest held by the
Economic Commission for
Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC) with
support from the
U.S.-based W.K. Kellogg
Foundation.
Although the
foundation’s volunteers
build homes year-round
in Chile, a special
effort is made before
Christmas, "to generate
ties of trust, which
strengthen the sense of
human solidarity," said
Prudencio. This year, a
total of 180 families
will have received new
houses during the
holiday season.
In some cases, the
wooden houses serve as
extensions to families’
shacks or rundown homes,
as in the case of Pamela
Peña, a mother of five
children between the
ages of five and 21, and
grandmother of two.
Peña told IPS that she
has always lived in Lo
Barnechea. In a sad
voice, she said her
mother abandoned her
when she was born, and
that her father never
recognised her.
When she grew up, the
father of her four older
children left her for
another woman while she
was pregnant, and did
not provide child
support.
Today she lives with
Gustavo, the father of
her youngest child,
Francisco. Gustavo works
loading and unloading
trucks, for which he
only earns 70,000 pesos
(110 dollars) a month.
That made it impossible
for them to save up the
40,000 pesos (62
dollars) that A Roof for
Chile charges the
families, and which Peña
and her partner still
owe.
The idea behind the
requirement for the
families to make a small
payment is so that they
have an investment and
are fully involved in
the construction of
their new houses, and so
that they see their new
homes as a step towards
a better future, in
which they will play a
leading role. Another
requirement is that the
family clear the plot
where the wooden house
will be built.
Peña was tired of living
in such crowded
conditions. Although
only three of her
children now live with
her and Gustavo, the
five of them were all
sleeping in the same
room, since one of the
two rooms in the little
house that the city
government assigned her
21 years ago collapsed
because of termites. The
roof of the remaining
room leaks when it
rains.
For the donors and
volunteers, their
involvement is a show of
neighbourly love and
solidarity.
"On Saturday, when we
arrived (at Peña’s
house), we all just
greeted each other in a
normal fashion. But when
we had to leave, we
hugged each other as if
we had been friends our
whole lives. This brings
out the best in you,"
Evelyn, a computer
engineer from Cuba who
has lived in Chile for
15 years, commented to
IPS.
Generally, "lasting
bonds of affection"
emerge between the
donors and the
beneficiary families,
she said.
"The first time I built
one of these houses,
last year, it had a huge
impact on me because I
hadn’t realised the
depth of the poverty
that people lived in,"
said Evelyn who, along
with her fellow
employees from the
company she works for,
collected 1,260 dollars
to purchase the
materials for the two
houses they have built.
Besides covering the
cost of and building the
houses, the group
brought boxes of food
and presents for the
children, "so they would
have a nicer Christmas."
According to the
information gathered by
a Roof for Chile in
2007, there are 533
slums in this country,
home to 29,000 families
-- down from 1,000 slums
in 1997, where 126,000
families lived.
"We believe that A Roof
for Chile cannot do this
on its own, because it
is too gigantic of a
task, which is why we
are trying to convince
everyone to make it a
national goal," said
Prudencio, who praised
the housing policy of
President Michelle
Bachelet.
The government has
relocated "more than
115,000 families from
slums to permanent
housing, and will
continue working with
the 20,000 families
counted in 2007,"
Housing and Urban
Planning Minister
Patricia Poblete said on
Sunday.
Since March 2006, the
government has
distributed 83.5 percent
of the housing
assistance funds
allotted for the
2006-2009 period --
557,000 dollars, said
the minister. In that
period, 868 low-income
housing projects have
been built for nearly
61,000 families.
"This year, the biggest
possible effort was made
to reduce the shortage
of low-income housing,
and more than 48,000
housing subsidies were
granted -- bringing the
total to 73 percent of
the 223,000 housing
subsidies budgeted for
until 2010," said
Poblete.
Furthermore, thanks to a
new housing policy, the
houses are larger -- 44
square metres on average
-- and have two
bedrooms, which can be
expanded to four.
While she watched her
new house go up, Peña
thought about how to
earn money for wood
paneling to line the
inside walls, to protect
her family from the cold
that would otherwise
seep in through cracks
between the boards when
the southern hemisphere
winter starts next June.
She said she is applying
for a housing subsidy,
but that she does not
think that she will
obtain it until 2012
because she and her
partner are not able to
save up much money. At
any rate, for now, she
is enjoying her new
wooden house. |
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