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Un Techo para mi País

File:UnTechoParaMiPais.jpg
Founded	1997
Area served	Global, headquarters in Santiago, Chile
Services	Housing construction and social inclusion programs
Website	www.untechoparamipais.org/english

Un Techo para mi País (UTPMP) is a Latin American non-profit organization led by university students and young professionals that works together with the inhabitants of precarious slums to eradicate the extreme poverty affecting more than 80 million people in the region. Their intervention model consists of three stages: the construction of transitional houses; the implementation of social inclusion programs; and the development of sustainable communities. The organization's goal is to eliminate poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean through joint work between slum residents and the university students and professionals who work for the organization. UTPMP has a presence in 19 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

History

Un Techo para mi País was founded in Chile in 1997 by a group of university students and Fr. Felipe Berríos, S.J.. The idea for the organization arose when a group of students studying civil engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile participated in a mission trip to build a small wooden chapel in a slum in the south of Chile, alongside the residents of the community. The students' experience motivated them to continue working in the area of economic and social development in Chile.

From this experience they came up with the idea of constructing modular wooden houses, similar to the chapel, as transitional homes for people living in conditions of extreme poverty. At the height of Chile’s economic growth and recognition on the international stage, the students felt frustrated with the rhetoric in Chilean society emphasizing the country’s record economic growth while simultaneously ignoring the thousands of families who continued living in slums. Fr. Berríos took groups of students and went into the slums. They built 350 transitional homes for families who had been living in sub-standard housing structures made of waste materials, with dirt floors and lacking basic services such as water, electricity and sewage. They surpassed their goal of building build 2,000 homes by the year 2000, constructing 5,000 by the end of the year.

Subsequently, groups of students from universities across Chile spontaneously began taking up the cause and pursuing similar projects. As the organization continued to grow in achievements and goals, some joined the original team to work professionally for the cause. The number of volunteers and professionals hired increased gradually, and a non-governmental organization was formed. UTPMP began its international expansion in 2001, and has been aided since then by the Inter-American Development Bank and its Multilateral Investment Fund. Today, the organization is present in 19 countries and has 45 regional offices throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Intervention Model

The organization's model consists of three stages:

• Construction of transitional houses
• Implementation of social inclusion programs
• Development of sustainable communities

These three stages aim to empower the leaders and local residents in order to transform the slums into sustainable communities, in a process accompanied by volunteers, that creates a commitment within society to end poverty in Latin America.

Construction of Transitional Houses

The transitional house is a prefabricated, 18m2 modular structure. It can be built in two days and rests on bases that raise it off of the ground and protect the structure and the family from humidity, floods and disease. The family agrees to participate in the construction and make a contribution equal to 10% of the value of the house. If necessary, the house can be deconstructed and moved to a different location in the event of a natural disaster. Houses vary slightly by geographical region; in locations with tropical, humid weather, they are built with ventilation spaces. In the southern regions of Chile and Argentina, they have insulation to protect the families from the cold. The per-cost house is roughly $1,500. To date, the organization has built 77,785 houses.

Social Inclusion Programs

The organization begins its long-term work in the slums during this stage. University volunteers work with the residents to carry out a diagnostic survey that identifies community needs and suggests possible solutions. The work aims to deepen the bonds created between volunteers and the communities by focusing on common objectives and demanding community participation in a formal planning process. The two principal tools used to achieve this are (i) Community Organizing Committees, meetings in which community leaders and volunteers analyze community issues, propose strategies and design action plans, and (ii) assemblies, a space in which decisions are made with participation from the entire community. In these meetings, various programs are implemented with the goal of responding to community needs identified by the volunteers and community leaders.

The social inclusion programs are:

• Education: Attempts to open up educational opportunities in the slums via a teaching-learning methodology in which the students are recognized as the authors of their own lives and environments. The educational process is enhanced by involving and sharing responsibilities with the families, the community and existing formal networks. This program includes formal learning programs, which include school leveling and tutoring, and non-formal learning programs, which are creative spaces in which cognitive learning and values acquisition activities take place.

• Skills Training: Develops a set of skills, abilities and knowledge that allows the beneficiary to perform an activity or a job. Comprised of two training acitivities: technical training, which provides tools and practical knowledge linked to the exercise of a specific occupation, and job training, which provides skills and abilities that facilitate an entrance into the labor market.

• Micro-credits: Aims to enable entrepreneurs to create and maintain a profitable business, which serves to assist in the creation of economic stability for the family. Provides skills and small loans for business capital. In this way, the micro-credit program accompanies entrepreneurs in the process of inclusion into a network of formal financial markets.

• Health: Through assistance in the problematization and raising awareness of health-related necessities, alternative solutions are created alongisde the residents. Community meetings, training activities and workshops develop prevention programs, diagnostic opportunities and the formation of links with formal networks in order to improve the quality of and access to health care for the community.

• Legal: Promotes recognition of civic rights and obligations within the community, and assists and assesses the residents in finding solutions to community and familial legal conflicts.

• Competitive Funds (Fontecho): Finances community projects that develop via the interest and inciative of the residents, oriented toward improving their quality of life. Promotes self-improvement, self-financing and the active use of local networks. Residents apply in groups to bring their projects to fruition.

Development of Sustainable Communities

In this stage, Un Techo para mi País implements plans and projects that aim to allow the slums to resolve their basic needs in a sustainable manner, incorporating various actors in the process. These projects address common structural problems in the different slums in each country. By virtue of their complexity and scale, these programs require teams of professionals working together with the directors of each community. In the case of Chile in particular, the program directors, volunteers and young professionals who work for UTPMP attack the structural housing problem in the country, assessing and accompanying the families in the process of applying for public housing funds. This process includes advisors in the selection of land, community participation in the project design, and supervision in the construction of the homes. The involvement of young professionals and community leaders in programs of this size promotes the critical evaluation of public policies that affect vulnerable families, creating spaces for the proposition of improvements and alternatives.

Impact in Statistics

• 400,000 youth volunteers and young professionals mobilized
• More than 78,000 transitional houses built
• Present in 19 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 45 offices in the region

2011 Goals

• Build 13,000 transitional houses
• Mobilized more than 140,000 university students throughout the region
• 210 functioning Community Organizing Committees and 400 Fontecho community improvement project funding banks
• 3,000 micro-credits given to entrepreneurs
• 4,500 people given skills training and 4,000 children participating in education programs

Awards and Recognition

• King of Spain Human Rights Prize conferred by Defensor del Pueblo, University of Alcalá, in 2011. UTPMP was recognized for its work in the defense and promotion of human rights and democratic values in Ibero-America.

• Housing and Urban Development South-South Transfer Award 2010, conferred by UN-HABITAT, the Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The prize recognized UTPMP for its mobilization of hundreds of thousands of young volunteers and the transfer of its innovative programs to 19 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Prize for contribution to the reduction of poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, given in 2010 by the Vidanta Foundation, the Secretary General of Ibero-America (SEGIB) and the Organization of American States. This prize recognizes and supports UTPMP's oustanding work in Latin America and the Caribbean dedicated to reducing poverty and inequality.

• Latin American Prize for NGO and Corporate Social Responsibility, given by the Foro Ecuménical Social in 2010. Its objective is to reward initiatives that improve community conditions and stimulate the spirit of solidarity.

• Best Practices in Policies and Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, given by the UN Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) and the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), recognizing UTPMP as having the best practices and work with and for young people in the region in 2009.

• UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Award, given in 2009 by the Program for Human Settlements in the United Nations and recognizing the outstanding contributions of our work in the area of human settlements. This is the most prestigious prize at the international level given to work in this area.

External links

• example.com