Case8-January-2013

Housing for More A Dutch Connection in Building Shelters for Poor

Madurai: Recently, villagers of Perumalpatti near Sholavandan, Kondayampatti near Alanganallur and few other villages in the district observed a group of foreigners were involved in constructing houses along with the local construction workers and much to their surprise some of the foreigners seem to be experts with the construction tools. It was a team from the Netherlands who have come on Building Week to oversee their project work of Housing4More.

A team of eleven professionals from various walks of life from the county were visiting Madurai last week on a six days trip to study their project status and discussed with various people including the beneficiaries. During the trip, they decided to get involved in construction of some of the houses under their project and they surprised the local masons with skill and agility because some of them in the group like Johan De Visser, Herwig Minnen and Paul Deurloo are architects and constructors themselves back in Netherlands.

During an interaction with the team, Tonny Drijdijk, Manager, Insurance of Rabo bank in Netherlands said that the project was the Corporate Social Responsibility of Rabo Bank and its 114 partnering institutions. The bank wanted to use its huge grand under CSR and came up with the plan of constructing houses for poor people across the globe. “We are working in 25 countries partnering with various local NGOs, constructing houses for the poor people who can’t afford housing”, he said. In India, they have partnered with DHAN Foundation, he said. Under the scheme they construct two types of houses as single houses and incremental houses sanctioning र 1.5 lakh for single houses and र 25,000 for incremental houses where additional rooms or facilities will be added to existing houses. The funds are sanctioned to the NGO who in turn manage the project locally and DHAN in its turn has made it different by lending these funds to its Kalanjiam Federation members where the loans are repaid over the period of 7 to 8 years and the loans are then provided to another set of beneficiaries. “Thus we have made one time grand into a revolving fund benefitting more and more people”, said Mr.A Madhan Kumar, Programme Leader of DHAN Foundation.

Housing4More has set aside र 1.03 crore for the project in India for constructing 90 single houses and 290 incremental houses and they have already sanctioned र 84.52 lakhs completing the construction of 60 single houses and 200 incremental houses. “We have completed nearly 70 percent of our project”, said Richard De Jager, Manager, Financial and Supporting Services of Rabo Bank.

Their construction expedition has yielded them a lot of learning, the team members said. They have suggested various measures of reducing the cost like constructing row houses, optimization of the construction materials through their expertise. “The local masons liked our tools brought from our country. So we are planning to impart this knowledge and construction tools and we will work out some system of providing them to local masons”, Tonny said.

The next expedition of Housing4More will be constructing cluster houses and the team members along with beneficiaries laid foundation stone for the housing complex in Paravai on November 29. The team members have greatly contributed to the project even from their pockets, DHAN sources said. “We learn that 400 to 600 million people don’t have housing in the world and it is our small effort in providing shelter to the poor”, says Ad Rujtenberg one of the member said.