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Volunteers from all over the world built 27 homes of Habitat in Romania.
In September in Skopje, Habitat Macedonia organized the second “Habitat Day” – all partner families together”. More than 70 of the 134 partner families were present at the meeting that took place at the Action Park in Skopje (Skopje Fair). In the past years, they, with support from Habitat Macedonia, managed to improve the living conditions in their homes. Families were using money from Habitat for reconstructions to parts of their homes which they performed themselves. Other participants at the meeting were representatives from the diplomatic core, civil society and state organizations, supporters of the Habitat for Humanity mission. At the moment, Habitat Macedonia is active with two programmes offering loans for reconstruction and renovation of substandard homes, inhabited by families who have no access to commercial loans.
“The award for best used loan was awarded at the meeting to the Eftimovi family, who have built up a room for the young Victoria. There was also a lottery organized for the youngest members of the families. They were supposed to do a puzzle and the best were awarded small gifts with the Habitat log”, said Darko Buldoski from Habitat Macedonia.
Experiences from Romania
In the beginning of September, Habitat for Humanity Romania hosted the biggest volunteer building site in Europe, “Euro 2007 – Habitat Builds”
Twenty-seven houses were built in the period between 3-7 September, each one for every country in the European Union. They were built in the town of Radauti, north Romania. This small town, located on the border with Ukraine – the new EU border, greeted about 650 volunteers from all over the world, who were building houses together with the Romanian families, enabling them to get safe, decent and accessible homes. In those 5 days, Habitat declared Radauti the European capital of volunteering and a leading town in the fight against substandard housing. In the construction of the houses according to the Habitat standards, their contribution gave ambassadors, politicians, businessmen and EU representatives who worked together with the other volunteers and the families. With the construction of the 27 houses, they solved the housing problem of 27 families and built the hopes of about 150,000 Romanians who live in substandard conditions. The goal of the event which followed right after the Romanian access in the EU, is to raise the awareness among the politicians and the diplomats in Europe to present the negative effects of the poor housing and to make them the first priority in the housing. The participants in the event emphasized the right of every EU citizen to a decent place for living, like the successful home solutions developed by Habitat – the biggest nonprofit constructor of social homes in the world.
“I appreciate this initiative especially and I consider that the arrival of volunteers from all over the world to work together and contribute to the families in need of a decent place for living is a wonderful example of solidarity and European value, which the Romanians will now be able to share”, said the Ambassador Donato Chiarinni, president of the EC office in Romania. His host, the Minister of Development, Public Affairs and Housing, Lazlo Borbeli, said that the topic of poor housing is a reality in Romania that everyone has to face. “We set up partnership between all the involved parties in order to solve the problem. What we need now is good coordination and cooperation to renew the degraded areas through integrated projects for urban development”, said Borbeli at the public debate organized on this topic.
Habitat partners at “Euro 2207” were Vodafone, Lafarge, Whirlpool. Mc Donald’s, City Group, Coca-Cola, Knauf, Isover and many others who donated materials, money or sent volunteers. So far, Habitat has built over 200,000 homes throughout the world. More than 1 million people live in the Habitat houses, which they helped to be built in over 100 countries in world.
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