Typhoon Reming

MANILA, Philippines--It takes no expert to pile blocks, drive nails or paint walls, just the heart to make time to rebuild lives one by one.

Seeking to enlist more volunteers for a noble mission, international humanitarian organization Habitat for Humanity is going on a road trip to typhoon-ravaged Bicol this September for a volunteer build, an event that hopes to add hundreds more to its roster of goodwill servants.

Building for communities displaced by typhoons Milenyo (international codename: Xangsane) and Reming (international codename: Durian) in 2006, Habitat is aiming to provide permanent shelter to some 2,000 families by the yearend, according to Margie Moran-Floirendo, co-chairperson of Friends of Habitat.

It is for this mission that Habitat has been prodded to bring its annual “Build on Faith” volunteer call event to the region, where many homeless families still spend their days and nights in tents amid less-than-ideal conditions.

“It's a continuing project. We've already started and we've finished 1,500 houses. It's an event to bring in more volunteers. It's a weekend event ... we'll be happy to get 200 and 400 volunteers. We will organize it from here and caravan to Bicol,” Floirendo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.

The event begins on Sept. 21 with a convoy to Bicol. Dubbed “Bicol Express” after the region's famous delicacy, the main program will be staged at a yet to be announced location on Sept. 22.

There, volunteers may simply sign up to take part in building 500 more homes Habitat is aiming to finish by December to accomplish its goal of completing 2,000 houses for typhoon victims within this year. Efforts that started in January have finished three-fourths of the target.

New recruits will work with Habitat's pool of skilled workers and a thousand-strong family of volunteers. Among the volunteers are those who worked in building homes for displaced families in tsunami-striken Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

Like any other “volunteer build” Habitat undertook in other disaster sites around the world, the Bicol project is fully funded by partners from the private sector and the houses made will be turned over to recipient families at no cost.

“When you talk of disaster, it's a magnitude, a lot of people are involved. It is important to help out because it's devastation. Here, our mission is to build homes for those who need homes, for those who have become homeless,” Floirendo said.

Ranging from duplex to detached homes, the units will rise via Habitat's quick-build technology, which involves the use of steel frames and Filipino-designed interlocking blocks. The same technology has helped Habitat speed up its low-cost construction projects around the country since four years ago.

Habitat, a Christian ministry, has built 20,000 houses for poor communities around the Philippines since it came here in 1988. Teachers, tricycle drivers, policemen, government employees and market vendors have moved into houses under their names at costs ranging from P45,000 to P90,000, Floirendo said.

The worldwide organization, which Floirendo said had a level of name similar to that of the Starbucks coffeeshop chain in the United States, has built houses for fire victims in the Baseco compound in Manila, slum communities in Pasay City and Taguig, villages in Mindanao, and cooperatives in provinces around the country with most “homepartners” (beneficiaries) paying at a rate of P16 a day.

For many of Habitat’s homeowners, living within sturdy walls and under a stable roof became affordable by forgoing a liter of soda a day or giving up some sticks of cigarette a day: the daily rate of payment could get as low as P16.

“To us, it's not the number of houses that we build that's important but the number of families that we serve. So no number is a small number because a lot of work and love and money has been put into these houses,” Floirendo said.

“And I believe that resources are large. Accessing resources will always be there. It's faith, that's why our celebration this September is called Building on Faith,” she continued.

The mission taught recipient families the value of saving, said Floirendo, a lesson that cannot be taught overnight. Such has been central in Habitat's current repayment rate of 85 percent among beneficiaries, an average that Floreindo said rivaled that of banks and was way better than that of government.

“The key there is the responsibility that we teach a person to be able to pay back society, because for every payment we get for a house, they are building another house. That's the concept of 'house for a house,’” she said.

While there may be no monetary reward for volunteers, Floirendo said there was no better feeling than sweating it out to build shelter for those who may have no other way to own homes.

“I can see that my personal reward is, it's part of my good works, giving back to God what he has given me. I believe for myself that grace always comes in many forms and to me, it's also a responsibility that I have for my country, for me to take part in nation-building,” she said.

Those who want to join Bicol Express may e-mail Habitat through bicolexpress.habitat@gmail.com.