Habitat for Humanity Nepal and partnership with Lumanti

I was extremely fortunate to lead a second Habitat build this year, and my trip to Nepal was my first to Asia with the charity. Apart from Everest, I actually realised I knew very little about the place. The country has had many challenges in the recent past, having declared itself a republic only last year after a royal scandal, and even today the Maoists pose a threat to everytday stability. Given the levels of tourism attracted to the trekking in the country, its poverty is rarely highlighted: per capita income is under US$500 per annum, and literacy is estimated to be around 50%.

Habitat has been working in the country for around 10 years now, and has this year just celebrate the completion of its 5000th house. Like many countries, it has adapted the traditional Habitat model to best serve its people - instead of local Habitat affiliates, Habitat partners with multiple other charitable organisations in order to better understand the needs of each region. In our case, we were building in Aaptari, a community near the major town Naranghat in the Chitwan region, about 20 minutes flight from Kathmandu. Habitat's partner here was Lumanti, a women's cooperative. Both the families we built for were members of the cooperative, and Habitat's financing model is also done through Lumanti.

Many parts of Aaptari can be said to be urban slums. The main city isn't far away, yet you feel like this community has been forgotten to a large extent. Most homes were still made the traditional way with mud and thatch. The culture is to have the entire family living in one room, where all the cooking is also done, and where the goats also sleep. This is an example of a typical slum house:

There are cement block or brick houses dotted around the village we were working in, the financing mainly coming from relatives working abroad in the Middle East or other parts of Asia. Most of the community work as labourers for around US$1.50 a day, but these are the relatively fortunate ones who have steady income into their families for them to be able to sustain a Habitat home. Anyway, here is some pics of my lovely team's work!

As is normal with these builds, safety standards are not quite at the level we are used to in the west! I include a few pics here to give Liz a few heart attacks. Here, our builder Dai was rigging up some dodgy looking scaffolding, I like the fact it is right next to the Habitat Site Safety poster:

And here is some more dodgy scaffolding: materials were so short, they used tin drum with a massive hole in it!

The community really welcomed us with open arms, and I think most of the fun from the build was spending time in the villages, playing with the kids, trying to console the goats after we demolished their house. Best of all, we became the local celebrities - we somehow managed to get on the telly multiple times whilst we were there! Here's a clip!