Anything For Humanity

The weekend of mid March was a memorable one for the habitat students and co-ordinators. Habitat’s first annual build was the highlight for Habitat’s long and prosperous year of 2015-16.
Visiting the Shiming Village ,Conghua Distict of the Guangdong Province. Habitat was given the responsibility to help the local people who had clay homes with tiles roofs, to help and make brick houses. These villagers were suffering in the winters and the rainy seasons in the Guangdong province. The tiled roofs would give up after a few years and water would constantly leak through. There would no electricity lines for their houses or water pipes for their daily needs. They would have to walk to a community water provider to get water everyday. The people of the Shiming village have a very low annual income, making them helpless for years before they have enough to build a new home. The Guangdong government has been very generous to the people of the village, subsidising housing and helping them get loans. Even after all the help, the villagers are still short of funds for a new home. This is what led Habitat to Conghua, the aim to build for the betterment of humanity.

The trip started off on Friday morning at 8:30 am when the bus left for Conghua. After a two and half hour ride with plenty of rest, the students were ready to help, gloves and helmets on. Kicking off after a stomach filling lunch from the village head, Mr. Yan, the students spent hours moving brick and stacking them up for the villagers. In a span of three days the pile of over 5000 bricks was moved and ready for the villagers to start building with. After an exhausting first day the group of 13 students had a good insight to the goals and aims they had to reach in the next two days.

The following day was pure hard work, fixed on the aim of helping the villagers as much as possible, students dug a trench from the ground up. The hardest moments of the digging was getting rid of the mound that was in the way of the trench. Hours and hours of work has to be put in from everybody to get the mound out of the way. At the end of the day the mound was removed, an only then did everyone exhale and walk their way back to the bus. The group this year showed absolute dedication and sheer will towards working and helping.

The third and last day involved moving bricks from the ground floor to the roof of a building, a human chain involving everyone, from the ground all the way up the stairs to the roof was required. The students and teacher co-ordinators did and amazing job getting all the work done. This enabled them to leave the Shiming village with a smile on their face, they could now say that they had done their job to the best of their capabilities.

Habitat Build 2015-16 was a great success for both the students who participated and the villagers that they were able to help. Seeing smiles on the faces of people who have to work a lot harder than us to get their bread everyday is a sight of pure and absolute happiness.