MINERVA BC NEWMAN
MANDAUE CITY — Habitat for Humanity-Terwilliger Center for Innovations in Shelter (TCIS) initiated the Solid Home Barangay Caravan Workshop early this year under its “Build It Right” project selecting 50 low-income households from Barangays Pakna-an, Casuntingan, Canduman and Cabancalan in Mandaue City in partnerships with the local Housing and Urban Development Office (HUDO), PAGIBIG, Savers Depot, United Architect of the Philippines (UAP), private sector companies and other organizations.
“We started with Mandaue City because out of all the local government units (LGUs) in Cebu, Mandaue City is the most supportive with the “Solid Home-Build It Right” project with its HUDO as our partner,” Reggie Marie Barrientos, Specialist of Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter (TCIS) said in a press interview during the Solid Home Barangay Caravan Workshop on September 21 in Cabancalan, Mandaue City.
TCIS is testing this project in Mandaue and if it works here, hopefully it can further be expanded to the rest of Cebu and the entire Philippines. The target of the program are those homeowners that need more guidance as to access in information, building materials, products and services to build their home properly, Barrientos bared.
According to Christine Villanueva, project lead for Project Solid Home of Brand Bucket that there is this nagging challenge on how to educate and bring closer quality construction materials particularly for wall and foundation for the low-income household.
“Because they’re usually the ones who are not aware of what they should be buying or what they should use for them to have a solid home. With that challenge in mind, we linked up with HUDO-Mandaue City to lead the caravan for the four barangays in Mandaue in partnership with PAGIBIG, Savers Depo, Arch. Hendrix Lato. They have joined us in the four caravans and they each have roles to fulfil in the “Build It Right” education campaign,” Villanueva shared.
A glimpse at the Barangay Cabancalan Solid Home info caravan
Architect Hendrix Lato of the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) led the “Build It Right” guides to better foundation and structural works, fire safety, moist and waterproofing, pest and infestation, light and ventilation for a solid home.
Architect Lato is the technical expert during every barangay caravan workshop translating the ‘Build It Right” guidelines into easy to explain tips that anyone can understand on how to build it right and how to build a solid home in his handwritten illustrations.
Ma. Shielo Monalem of Savers Home Depot is the project’s partner store with other partner stores at the barangays that are also part of the solid home program. Their role basically is to educate the store clerks on how they can promote quality construction materials.
Barrientos said that Savers Home Depot allowed TCIS also to put merchandising materials in their stores which means that they are a solid home project partner. Meanwhile, Ricardo Pareja of PAGIBIG discussed about the government’s ‘Pabahay’ program and its low housing financing through the PAGIBIG.
The Solid Home Barangay Caravan team always facilitated the event into a fun, easy interactive campaign with games, raffles and Q & A with prizes for every correct answer, to give tips on how to build and or renovate homes with proper advice and guidance at the most fun way.
According to Barrientos that when TCIS did the study in Mandaue City, they realized that at least 20-30 percent of low-income homes are substandard and walls and for the whole of Cebu, at least 30 percent of homes are without foundations and are even in need of retrofits.
The “Build It Right” guides campaign came in handy for a particular market segment, the “DIYers” those that build their homes bit by bit. “Because they’re doing it incrementally, they’re not doing it right,” Barrientos noted.
Villanueva also bared that the “Build It Right” campaign starts with the barangay info caravan, workshops to educate the homeowners first, then the next step is with the hardware stores; third step are the pandays, the masons or the carpenters. The program provides these groups with technical workshop and a little bit of incentive program as well to keep the engagement going.
“We hope that the caravans and the workshops we’ve been doing, we get to impart knowledge some of them common and some are rather technical, but we go after the objective which is to help low income households be aware and apply what we are teaching them to build a solid home,” Villanueva said.