This project will raise the money to build 5 quality homes and provide support for families in need living in very poor areas near Bogota, Colombia. Their current homes barely stand and are built with pieces of wood and metal which make them dangerous and insufficient to provide safe shelter. Having a home dramatically changes the lives of children as they can stay away from drugs, violence and abuse while they struggle to leave the extreme poverty status.
480.000 families live in extremely difficult conditions in Colombia due to lack of proper housing. Children living in these conditions can rarely finish elementary school. They get involved in drug dealing and become victims of sexual abuse. OCDE studies estimate that it takes 11 generations for a person in extreme poverty in Colombia to overcome this condition. We want to speed up this process for as many families as we can.
Improving housing conditions is the first step towards better health and education. We aim to help families to have a real chance of a better future by facilitating a stable environment to study, live and learn how to solve difficult situations. We try to impact positively families with children and so far we have been able to build 182 houses. We not only deliver the house but implement education programs and training aiming to avoid family violence or abuse episodes.
One boy or girl that that has a decent house and is able to successfully complete high school is an adult that has escaped from becoming a drug dealer or an addict. We plant seeds in the families we help so they grow strong and committed. We aim to interrupt a chain of hopelessness that surrounds the life of young people in tough neighborhoods in Colombia.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
