World View Magazine - Spring 2008 - (Page 12)

Working Vacations ENGAGING MASONS When teams of builders know what they’re getting into by David Taylor Volunteers work with local laborers on Habitat’s 200,001st house, built in Tamil Nadu, India and others built homes in Mowire, Ghana. crews would work with families to determine the best way to incorporate cooking into house design, mindful of household economics. Kerosene stoves were affordable in Papua New Guinea, for example, but keeping a kerosene supply was not. Where people cooked with charcoal, Habitat builders aimed to reduce the smoke in the cooking area. More recently, to support efforts to relieve the HIV/AIDS epidemic in southern Africa, Habitat has devoted priority to field teams in that region. To understand housing in the context of a society-wide problem like HIV/ AIDS, Habitat takes two approaches. First, it partners with groups that have experience in that region and the issue: For example, designing clinics. Second, they look closely at the role of housing in that particular crisis. After the tsunami in Southeast Asia, where millions of homes were swept away, the 12 Spring 2008 Habitat for Humanity F or more than 30 years, Habitat for Humanity has been working alongside those in desperate need of housing to help provide the new homes. In the process, they have discovered that you need to learn the territory and be flexible, especially when you send volunteers to other countries. Founded in 1976 by Millard and Linda Fuller as a Georgia-based, non-profit, ecumenical “Christian housing ministry,” Habitat took its housing program overseas within months of starting its domestic program. e overseas program, Global Village Volunteers, sends a team of volunteers who pay their own way to another country for a housing construction project that may take 12 days. e program’s goal is to work alongside host-country Habitat affiliates, raising awareness of the burden of poverty housing and building decent, affordable housing worldwide. Each trip offers volunteers unusually direct contact with the team leader on planning, allowing for flexibility and trip-by-trip adaptation. Habitat lists its volunteer projects on five continents on its website, where you can search by location or timeframe and e-mail team leaders for details. e organizational focus on housing construction sets the parameters for Habitat’s approach to development. Yet Habitat frames its projects according to local conditions, in a manner familiar to those with Peace Corps experience. David Minich, director of Habitat’s Global Village work teams, recalls his first assignment to Papua New Guinea in the late 1980s. Traditional home construction in many parts of Papua New Guinea consisted of wood and bamboo, with cooking done on fire blocks of hard clay. e Habitat

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of World View Magazine - Spring 2008

World View Magazine - Spring 2008
Contents
From the President
Lafayette Park
Your Turn
Gallery
Note to Readers
Introduction to the Issue
Engaging Masons
Commentary
Letter from Guatemala
Links of a Chain
Gallery
Science for Good
Letter from Jima
Another Country
Letter from Accra
Community News

World View Magazine - Spring 2008

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https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/worldview/spring08
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