Ten homes. Five days. Scores of Habitat for Humanity volunteers last week swapped work and home responsibilities for shovels, hammers and cement at Masipumelele informal settlement.
Stacks of bricks identified the building sites among the warren of shacks built within a metre of each other and the occasional brick house. By last Tuesday, when the volunteers moved in, only the foundations had been laid. By Saturday afternoon a whole house will stand there.
“It’s valuable work that makes a difference,” said Grant Edkins, nicknamed Mkhukhu (shack) by the community. The full-time Habitat for Humanity volunteer coordinator said it is about partnership and participation, not handouts.
Habitat for Humanity raises the R35 000 cost of each home comprising two bedrooms, a lounge, kitchen and bathroom. That money is repaid at no interest over seven to 10 years by the homeowners, who also provide sweat equity during construction. Homeowners — families who earn between R800 to R2 500 a month — have to save R1 800 over six months and undergo training in basic building, budgeting and administration.
By Tuesday at 7am the prospective homeowners have laid on sandwiches and coffee at Masipumelele hall to greet the 200 or so volunteers — from elderly women in sensible tracksuits and sturdy shoes to teenagers in fashionable jeans.
They came from 10 churches across Cape Town, and some from further afield. Thom Hunter is from Ireland, part of a group of 14 Catholics and Protestants who volunteered for Springboard, an Irish peace and reconciliation NGO.
“Hopefully we can learn from our experience and take it home,” said Hunter, who is a tree surgeon in Belfast. Although the shacks of the working-class townships are very different in his homeland, the sense of community is similar.
The various employers of Boniswa Mangesi, a char, gave her time off to help build her home. “They were very excited when I told them. They promised to come see my house,” she said.
Lindiwe Madosi is another beneficiary. “I’m so happy,” she smiled. For more than 10 years the domestic worker, her husband and stepdaughter have lived in a shack.
And then it was time for prospective homeowners and volunteers to team up and head to the building sites amid some polite conversation about the weather or boisterous warnings not to “mess with the cement”.
Natalie Lockett took four days’ leave from her work at one of South Africa’s insurance giants. Then she persuaded work colleague Danie van Zyl to join her. Why? “To give something back to the community and to God,” she said. “I called him [Van Zyl] a wimp before he changed his mind.”
Van Zyl just smiled: “I’ve never done this before. It’s a good deed.”
Vuyisile Dlavuza, the local coordinator, said the first Habitat for Humanity homes were built in January 2001. The local women’s group had heard of the initiative through the church network and visited construction in the informal settlement of Harare, Khayelitsha. Subsequently the first group of Masipumelele residents were organised, trained and became homeowners.
The initiative took off and since then 63 homes have been built during three building blitzes. This week’s construction is the fourth, adding 10 homes to the 300 built by the NGO in seven of Cape Town’s poorest communities. Since 1996 Habitat for Humanity has built 1 000 homes in 16 communities throughout South Africa.