By Maribel F. Larracochea | Fund and Partnership Development Officer
Build Change received eight weeks of hands-on support from our partners at IDEO.org. Several activities have been carried out to further promote the retrofit project in the community. These include a “home improvement lottery” held in October wherein 21 homeowners won a free home evaluation and retrofit plan, and one lucky homeowner won a free house retrofit. Our technical team is conducting the home appraisals and is about to begin the retrofit for the winner of the home improvement lottery. In addition, we also conducted activities to gauge interest of homeowners for a retrofit loan and market a loan product. Two sales agents, who are also Pembo residents, went door-to-door and signed up interested homeowners for a loan product for home retrofitting. Over a 15 day period, 21 people made a deposit of Php 1,000 for Build Change to conduct a technical and financial appraisal, indicating there is demand for specialized loan products for retrofitting.
One of the homeowners interested in the loan product is Mario Bermudez, who has been living in Pembo for more than 56 years. Mario dreams of securing a better future for his children and family and was thinking of improving his small home-based business to help him realize this dream. However, he currently does not have the financial means to do it. When Mario heard about the loan product from his friend, he immediately got in touch with Build Change, made a deposit and scheduled an appraisal. He plans to use the loan to strengthen his house (through retrofitting) and at the same time add extra space to accommodate rental units, which will give him additional income. Mario is very excited about the opportunity, he believes that this will open a door for a bright future for his family, and for Pembo community in general. More stories of residents and their dreams for their families and for the community of Pembo can be found through this link – www.facebook.com/OurPembo.
In the coming weeks, Build Change will continue to conduct activities to help build pride in Pembo among the community residents (e.g. resilience awards) while raising their awareness at the same time about the importance of retrofitting to help increase their resilience, both physical and economic, and eventually resilience of the whole community. Through your support, we will be able to reach out to more people like Mario and help them to achieve their dreams of a better home and a better community.
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