Students help Families & Communities
to build Self-reliance through Shelter
Every year, secondary
students aged 16+ travel
overseas with Habitat for
Humanity to help families
to build strength, stability
and self-reliance through
shelter. Anna Smith from
Habitat for Humanity
Ireland tells us more.
In Zambia, 64 percent of people
live under €2. In Romania,
many rural communities have
no access to piped water and live
in cramped and crumbling
apartment blocks. In the slums
of Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, as
many as 15 families may share
one toilet.
Every year, dedicated and
committed secondary school
students and teachers from
around the country travel to
countries such as Zambia,
Romania, and Lesotho to build
safe and decent homes with
Habitat for Humanity Ireland’s
School and Youth Groups
programme.
“I wanted to help people who
are less fortunate then we are
and help make a difference to
their lives,” says Emma Clifford-
Clancy, Easter Youth Build
volunteer.
Secondary school students meet
and build alongside the families
who will own the homes. “I love
Habitat’s approach of ‘a hand
up, not a hand out’, because the
best part of our trip, for me, was
getting to work with family
members who would soon be
calling this place home. We may
not have spoken the same
language as the builders but it
didn’t stop us from working
together to achieve something
great,” says Sophie Hopkins,
Rathdown School volunteer.
Students learn about the root
causes of global development
issues, and return home as
voices for safe shelter, spreading
the word about the global
housing need. “It’s upsetting,
seeing the conditions that
partner families are currently
living in, but I feel so incredibly
lucky and so glad to have been
able to meet these amazing and
kind people and to help them
change their lives for the better,”
says Erin O’Leary, Summer
Youth Build volunteer.
Some schools return to the same
communities year after year,
and witness sustainable
development in action. They
observe thriving communities
taking shape as the Habitat
homeowners from previous
years settle into their homes.
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T Y UPDATE MAY 2017
They see what can be achieved
when people come together with
a common purpose – to build
strength, stability and self-
reliance through shelter. “For
going on a Habitat for Humanity
trip is much for than a simple
act of benevolence, it is a
cultural exchange. Our gift was
monetary in nature, and the gift
of the Zambian people was their
beautiful culture, which they
gave selflessly. I will never be
able to repay for the incredible
experience I had, but upon
departure, I promised my
Zambian friends that I would be
back,” says Declan Murphy,
Gonzaga College volunteer.
Pictured (clockwise from
top left) are Old Bawn
Community School in
Romania, Rathdown School
in Romania, Summer Youth
Build Volunteers in
Romania and (below)
Gonzaga College in Zambia.