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Browsing University publications by Author "Gaiti, Athiru"

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    Habitat for Humanity Kenya
    (Tangaza University College, 1998-09) Gaiti, Athiru
    When we look at the statistics about housing conditions in the world, and especially in Africa, we wonder how it comes that the issue of shelter is generally overlooked by the majority of the agents of development. Strange enough, despite its implications on all the aspects of human life, shelter in seldom considered a priority. And yet, shelter does not only mean a roof and walls, i.e. protection against rain, cold, heat, and dust. Rather, it also provides security, privacy and space for carrying out socio-economic activities which are necessary for survival, comfort and happiness of human beings.2 The project we are about to illustrate deals with housing for the needy in rural Kenya. Actually, rather than a project, it is more of a shelter ministry geared towards integral human development. A Christian organisation, Ilabitat for Humanity International, runs world-wide a self-help housing program in partnership with local communities of people in need. Such a partnership is actualised through the mediation of two other different levels of the organisation, i.e. regional (Africa and Middle East) and national. Vision, mission, and goal are the same at all the levels, and the partnership grants financial support; however, the program is community based, run at the grass roots and this means a process of adaptation. During our long holidays, we had the chance to work for two months and a half in one of these community in Kenya, namely Kirindine, which is one of the branches of Athiru Gaiti affiliate to Habitat for Humanity Kenya. This chain of partnerships which links the small local community to a world-wide organisation makes it difficult to report with linearity goal, objectives, strategies, activities at Kirindine. The question is that to understand the local project we need to present also the policies made at national and international level, because many aspects are in common and derived from there. Nevertheless, there is also a strong local component that gives a peculiarity to each community. Moreover, the same case applies to the level of Athirit Gaiti affiliate: whereas some aspects of the program are in common between all the branches, others are very typical of each one of them. This is why we cannot report only about what we have seen at Kirindine; it is necessary to give an overview of all the Habitat for Humanity program. /Thanks to the collaboration and the materials found at Habitat, our observation wa enriched with plenty of data, analyses, insights, and explanations. So much so, at it has been challenging to re-organise all the materials we got. The present report owes a lot to those documents and we are extremely grateful for the openness, transparency and sincere friendship found in the members of staff both at Kirindine and Nairobi.