Our aim is to send nine young people from within our Housing with Care and Support projects to the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa to work with Habitat for Humanity in June 2011.
Not only will this be the experience of a lifetime for the young people who are selected to go, it will also help to change the lives of South African people who are desperate for a decent place to live.
Over the past couple of years we have raised £27,000 through fundraising activities involving staff, service users, tenants and partner organisations. These activities have included selling food, holding quiz nights and selling wristbands. We have also benefited by some very kind donations by both NCHA staff and local businesses.
NCHA's relationship with Habitat for Humanity over the past several years has previously involved maintenance workers travelling to South Africa to lend skills, such as plumbing and wiring, to assist in house building.
This inspired the idea to continue working with Habitat for Humanity but this time, instead of sending maintenance workers, we decided that we should send service users from our young persons projects. Some of the service users even named the project : Build for Better Lives.
The idea of sending service users instead of maintenance workers has huge advantages. Critically, the service users have either been homeless or at risk of homelessness and so will have some idea about what it's like not to have an adequate place to live. However, it is obvious that being homeless in South Africa is different to being homeless in the UK. For starters, they do not have businesses like NCHA to house them and assist them in improving their lives. Therefore, this is their chance to give back.
Build for Better Lives is hopefully a venture that we can continue in the future, so that many more of our service users can benefit from the experience.
