Kathmandu, Jan. 19: “We just dedicated our hundred and eleventh Nepali house in Pokhara today,” said Mr. Millard Fuller, Founder and President of Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), on the third day of his first visit to Nepal.
Speaking at a press conference in Kathmandu, he said, “I am very happy with the progress we have made in Nepal.”
Nepal Habitat for Humanity (NHFH) is registered with the Social Welfare Council and has been building houses for the poor since its beginning in August 1997. Through the policy of providing interest free loans to poor people who own little land of their own, NHFH has built 53 houses in Tikapur of Kailali district, 30 in Nayagaon of Kaski and 28 in Dibyanagar of Chitwan district.
Fuller, a self-made American millionaire at 29 — but who completely switched to social work in 1968 and found HFHI in 1976 said, “We are now in 63 countries and have built 85000 houses in 2500 cities in the last 24 years. We have local affiliate groups for each area — and these groups have selection units for proper family selection.”
Fuller said, ” We will dedicate the 100,000th house this year in New York city this year. We have housed half a million people in 24 years — but it will only take 5 more years to house twice that number. We hope to have housed 1 million people by the year 2005 worldwide.”
Fuller, who has received awards at the highest levels for his work and whose family consists of his wife and four children spoke about his real reward, “I get a heavenly feeling when I witness the elevation of the human condition.”
He warned that it would be the Nepali community at large that would be primarilly responsible for the raising of local funds for the building of many more houses for the poor in Nepal.
Fuller said, “We always hope that governments or others provide land for the poor people to build on — so we can provide the loan.”
In Nepal the government has decided to waive the tax for habitat built houses — that amounts to five thousand rupees per house.
Mr. Ram Nath Khatri, treasurer of Nepal HFH said that habitat built strong houses at low cost using cement and good roofing material . He said, “There are an estimated 3 million houses in Nepal but 2.7 million are weak mud structures lying at the mercy of natural forces.”
Chip and Mary, former American Peace Corps volunteers in Nepal, now married and working as NHFH staff in Kathmandu, told, “The average home owner contribution in terms of construction material or labour has been 22 thousand rupees per house and the loan from NHFH has been 75 thousand rupees.”
In addition to having their own land and a monthly income of between Rs. 2500 and 4500.
A habitat house is built by people in need with assistance of volunteers from the local community, the government, civic organisations and businessmen. The loan provided by habitat has to be paid back monthly over a ten year period.
The repayment of the loan in turn goes into a “Fund for Humanity” that is rural based. This revolving fund encourages villagers not to move into town but build up their own village homes.
The Nepal HFH executive committee made entirely of volunteers have caught on to Fuller’s vision of a world without shacks’ and have an ambitious plan of building 250 houses by the end of 2000 and an additional 1000 houses by 2005.
Nearing eighty years in age, Chairman of the Advisory Board of Nepal HFH, Jesuit Father E.L. Watrin, told, “Last year in March I went from Nepal to the Philippines to take part in a week long house building programme. Ten thousand volunteers from 43 different countries, including former US president Jimmy Carter, sweated to make 293 houses in 4 different locations for the poor.”