Haiti
One year after a magnitude-7.0 earthquake in Haiti destroyed nearly 190,000 homes and left more than 1.5 million survivors homeless or displaced, visible progress has been painfully slow.

• More than 21,000 emergency shelter kits are in the hands of people who needed them most.

• Habitat and its partners have built more than 200 latrines, distributed 750 household hygiene kits and held hygiene promotion classes to stem the deadly spread of cholera.

• More than 1,000 families have received recyclable transitional or upgradable shelters, with a total of 2,000 scheduled to be completed by the end of January 2011.

Habitat for Humanity Haiti

Nicaragua
Eighty percent of the Nicaraguan population subsists on less than US$2 per day, and 43 percent on less than US$1 a day. In a country of more than five million habitants, there are many situations that affect the housing situation.

Habitat for Humanity works through four main initiatives to serve low-income families, with special emphasis given to women-headed households, families with three or more dependents, families with members who have special needs and families with a monthly income of less than US$350.

Global Village - Help build with HFH in Nicaragua

Tanzania
Poverty housing is a huge problem in Tanzania. In the villages, the majority of families live in ‘tembe’ or ‘mbavu za mbwa’ houses, basic wooden frames covered with mud. Almost 80% of the population lives in houses with bare earth floors. Leaking roofs leave pools of water inside the house, providing localized breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Houses are almost always overcrowded and require a tremendous amount of maintenance, while entire walls often collapse in the rainy season.

HFHT houses consist of two or three rooms and are built with walls of burnt bricks, sand / cement blocks or stabilized soil. Solid foundations are a key feature of design, together with cement floors and windows screened against mosquitoes.

Habitat for Humanity Tanzania
YouTube - HFH Tanzania

Kyrgyzstan
After the collapse of the Soviet system, Kyrgyzstan cut a variety of social benefits, leaving families with fewer resources for housing. More than 75 percent of the population has no access to safe drinking water, and even more lack access to hygienic sanitary facilities. Nearly 70 percent of the population lives in substandard homes or is homeless. It is not unusual for three generations to be crowded into a single room with no heating or water.

Habitat Kyrgyzstan helps low-income families build new homes and complete half-finished structures left since the fall of communism. It works with condominium associations to identify and repair the most serious problems, which usually are the result of a lack of maintenance of common areas.Local cane reed homebuilding technology combined with under-floor heating allows families to save about 75 percent in energy costs. Habitat has developed, in partnership with another nongovernmental organization, an ecologically friendly toilet. It converts waste into safe compost, which is later used as fertilizer.

Habitat for Humanity Kyrgzstan

Nepal
In Nepal, 90% of families live in one room house with at least five members, their main source of income is daily labor, and children often get married once they turn 16.

A typical family of eight lives in a 12ft long by 7.5ft wide room that serves as kitchen, grain store and bedroom. Family members cannot sleep comfortably because there is not even enough space to straighten their legs.

So far, 784 families received funds for housing and a partnership has been established with “Lumanti-Support Group for Shelter” for technology transfer of Prefabricated Bamboo Housing.

HFH Nepal Official Blog
Everest Build 2012 Flier - Invitation to build in Nepal
HFH Nepal Quarterly Report
HFH Nepal Newsletter