Building as if you care.
Being bilingual and having been raised in Guatemala during the summers, I’ve seen first hand the lack of appropriate housing for the indigenous people in the cities and the countryside. I have always had a desire to give back to those less fortunate.
One of the greatest projects that I participated in this past year was a service trip to Barrio Nicole, Argentina. The organization Un Techo Para Mi Pais (A Roof for my Country) really impressed me, it was comprised of college age students spending time physically constructing homes for the less fortunate.
Our group constructed for them simple one-room enclosures with four wood walls. We dug holes for wooden piles, laid out the framework and added floorboards. We then raised the walls and installed the windows and door, and later the roof. My team worked solidly and cohesively to build these ten homes. We created HOMES where these families now had doors to shut out the rest of the world and to interact with one another within the intimacy and privacy of their own space. What a concept.
Shelter is such a basic need in human survival. Void of any aesthetic detail, our constructs were simply functional. As a student of design and interior architecture, it was during this trip that I decided that I would like to design with a humanitarian mindset, taking into consideration the socioeconomic factors, landscape and environmental concerns of the region, and to help those in need whenever possible.
http://www.untechoparamipais.org.ar/espanol/index.php
(photo credit: personal photo)
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