The international NGO One Roof for My Country has launched a project in Brazil in an effort to alleviate poverty in underprivileged communities in Latin America by offering houses with solid structures in favelas, where most houses are made from wood found in the trash.
The initiative is divided into three stages: first, emergency houses are built where shacks are currently located. The construction is all done by volunteers, the majority of which are university students. In the second stage, the NGO extends itself in outreach across the board, helping the families living in the favelas through targeted health and education, as well as helping them find employment, seek legal advice, and get involved with micro-credit and community building. The last phase of the project involves the actual onstruction of permanent homes in place of the original shacks.
All the stages are conducted with active involvement of the inhabitants of the favelas, making them not only beneficiaries of the project, but also responsible for the implemented solutions.
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When permanent houses are constructed, what consideration is given to ownership of the land on which they are built? In many countries, the reason people build and live in “shacks” is as much to do with the fact that they cannot get secure rights to the land they are living on, making construction of a more permanent dwelling a wasted investment. It is my belief that consideration of the laws regarding land rights and ownership of property should be the first stage of any program to reduce poverty in the shanty towns of developing countries. However, this will take both time and political will, and so is more often than not sidestepped.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Right on Nigel. I speak on behalf of Mandalah/PSFK in São Paulo, who authored the post above. In the cases of Rio’s favelas, for example, the dwellings are in fact illegal. An exacerbating fact is that these dwellings are also home to the country’s drug trade, reason for which recognizing, legalizing, or regulating the land is such a controversial issue. As you mentioned, it will take time and political will and my feeling is that we’re nowhere close to a solution. While the initiative higlighted in the post is by no means ideal nor sustainable, it seems to be a reasonable alternative to the status quo.
Thanks for your thoughts, Nigel.
All our best from Brazil,
LB
October 30th, 2008 at 11:27 am