Published: Wednesday, 16th April, 2008 09:39
Malawi Project 2008
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NINE Dunfermline Building Society staff are taking DIY to a whole new level next month when they travel to Malawi to help build houses from scratch for the homeless in a charity project.
The team and six friends will travel to Africa on May 24 for a week to help Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), a non-profit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry which encourages people of all backgrounds, races and religions to work together to build houses, striving to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness.
They will be working in an urban project in Area 29 of Lilongwi, Malawi’s capital, building with the householders who will be occupying the finished homes.
Ethel Chiwanda, a Habitat for Humanity Malawi homeowner took part in an earlier part of the project. She said: “I used to live in Mgona slum, in a house of temporary material. I am a vendor: I sell maize in Mgona. From my new house, I can walk there. My husband is a carpenter and has a shop in Area 18. We have two children. We are feeling much better in our new house and our lives are more comfortable here. The slums are so congested and this is much more spacious.
“I decided to participate in this project because I wanted to have a decent house, not like the one in the slum. I also wanted a legal plot. We are very happy with the project, especially the issue of these plots. At a later date we will add more rooms.”
The Dunfermline-based staff got involved in the project after Alan Hobbett and Gordon Campbell heard about the charity's work building ten houses in a week in Cape Town, South Africa.
They asked around the Society to see if anyone would be interested in getting involved, and have now got a team of willing brickies including Peter Weanie, Jo Hobbett, Angela Campbell, Kathryn Smith, Laura Hunter, Mhairi Cruikshank, Avril Gill, and Mark Russell. They are being joined by friends and business associates John Wilson, (Will Travel), Euan Ramsay, (Housing Finance Specialist and former Director Cube Housing Association), Patrice & Fiona Fabien (Brechin Tindall Oates, Solicitors) and Grant Ager, (Chief Executive Fairfield Housing Co-operative, Perth).
As well as volunteering their time, the team have been busy organising fundraising events in the hope of exceeding their massive target of £25,000. Fundraising social occasions included a Race Night & Eastern Buffet, a Barbecue Cruise on the River Forth, hosted by ‘Mr Dunfermline’ himself, Jim Leishman MBE and a Boardroom dinner with guests of honour Jack McConnell MSP and Willie Young, the premier league referee. Raffle ticket sales and ‘buy a brick for Malawi’ campaigns have begun, and Patrice and Fiona Fabian have cycled from Glasgow to Edinburgh in the first of their fundraising cycles.
Staff at the Dunfermline Building Society, which has a network of 34 branches and 550 staff across the region, are now holding a follow-up fundraising dinner for the Malawi Project. The funds raised will help purchase the building materials needed to build a house.
While this is the first time to Malawi for all team members there has been a long association between Scotland and Malawi, which dates back to the area’s ‘discovery’ by Scottish missionaries in the Nineteenth Century. The largest city in Malawi is Blantyre, named after David Livingston’s home-town in Lanarkshire and Malawi’s schools are organised on the Scottish system. The first premier of Malawi, Dr Hastings Banda, was educated in Edinburgh, and our former First Minister, Jack McConnell, began a high profile Malawi Initiative during his time in office to strengthen links between our countries and to increase aid and exchange. Jack McConnell will become High Commissioner for Malawi in 2009.
A typical Habitat house is 5x6m and made from kiln-fired clay bricks, with glass windows, air vents for good ventilation and a cement tile roof, a sharp contrast to the mud huts most villagers live in.
For more information on the project, or to donate money to this great cause go to: http://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk:80/whe_afr_mal.htm
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