Habitat for Humanity is endeavouring to get corporate SA to team up with the organisation to build more homes for South Africans who desperately need them.
Credit: Making of Cities
Habitat for Humanity SA (Habitat SA), the core business of which focuses on developing resilience of individuals and communities, especially as it pertains to the improvement of or access to housing, believes firmly that empowering people by providing homes is the first step to lifting people out of poverty and as such have been teaming with corporates for “build events” across the country.
This recently paid dividends as a team of volunteers from @Home descended on KwaZulua-Natal to build a two-bedroom home with a kitchen and a bathroom for 71-year-old grandmother Yaza Maphumulo.
After living for most of her life with five people in a single room mud shack, Maphumulo was overjoyed with the home that was developed by eThekwini Special Needs Project partnered with Habitat SA and the KZN Department of Human Settlements, eThekwini Municipality and construction firm Dezzo Holdings.
“I am so happy about our new house. We will have windows now and I can look outside when it’s raining,” said Maphumulo.
Jani van Niekerk from @Home who first inspired her company to become involved in the builds made a moving speech at the launch urging other corporates and fellow South Africans to follow suit.
“Building a home isn’t about giving a couple a house… It is helping someone fulfil a basic human need for safety and shelter, it’s a space for a mother to keep her children safe and warm, off the streets…a place for children to come to study and build their own brighter futures… maybe a refuge for a four-legged scoundrel who might have otherwise roamed the streets… a place where a grandma or grandpa can grow old with dignity… it is laying the foundation for a healthier society,” she said.
Habitat SA urges SA corporates to join @Home and partner with them in this initiative and to be part of, “the lasting and sustainable change in our beloved country”.
To book your team, today email: build@habitat.org.za
