To us a shelter has a more enduring quality.  A shelter should be capable of lasting for as long as the recipient needs a place to live until a “permanent” home can be constructed.  There is so much time and money lost in the process of distributing tarps, then tents, then transitional shelter (more on this in a moment), then finally somewhere down the road a permanent shelter or home.    

Truth be told; Haitians are in trouble.  I know the news says that the hurricane season is coming but Haiti doesn’t need to have a hurricane to expose the already present condition of deteriorated tents and tarps.  I personally touched some tents and they literally ripped in my hands.  Tents are already collapsed and on the ground, no longer occupied.  At the end of the day, many (hundreds of thousands) people are already exposed and more will be in the coming months. 

The new transitional shelters that we hear about are really glorified tents.  Here too, a lot of money will be spent erecting the transitional shelters which are defined by UN and other governing bodies as steel or wooden poles with a tarp wrapped around them.  They are said to last longer but for $1,500 the recipient will be left with very little in a year or two.

I do not believe the Haitian people are asking for a handout.  The country was so poor before the earthquake that they literally have nothing with which to re-construct on their own.  Crumbled concrete, which is available everywhere can not be put back together again and reused the same way say wood lumber or steel may be. 

For a quick view of Haiti and the current condition as of July 2010 see the following video.

DHAKA, 25 August 2009 (IRIN) – Heavy monsoon  rains, which arrived much later than normal this  year, have stranded hundreds of thousands in southeastern Bangladesh  and threatened livelihoods, say local officials.

According to the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC), there are nine places where river levels are 3-125cm above the danger level. If current rainfall persists – as the FFWC thinks it will – by the end of August over 30 percent of the country could be inundated, the forecast warns.

The FFWC blames the flooding on unusually heavy rainfall combined with drift water flooding in from the Assam and Meghalaya regions of India.

Kurigram, Rajbari, Sirajganj and Rangpur districts in Rajshahi Division, and Rajbari in Dhaka Division are the worst affected. Bangladesh has six divisions.

In Kurigram District, over 200,000 people in seven sub-districts were left stranded by floodwaters, with over 30,000 hectares of crops inundated and presumed lost.

“It’s been 10 days since we were stranded by the flood and there is no sign that the water will recede soon. It seems that no one is concerned about our plight,” Lalchad Khan, a 65-year-old resident of Ulipur sub-district in Kurigram, complained.

Relief efforts under way

But according to government officials, relief efforts are under way. “We have already opened up a flood relief centre in the district. To provide emergency relief support, we have requested the government for 50 metric tonnes of rice and five million taka (US$74,000),” Mohammad Asaduzzaman, district commissioner of Kurigram, told IRIN.

In addition, 2,200 Vulnerable Groups Feeding (VGF) cards were being provided to each of Kurigram District’s 72 unions (sub-locations).

Each family provided with the card receives 20kg of rice. VGF cards are issued by the government in times of crisis to ensure food delivery to those most severely affected.

More than 30 villages in Sirajganj District were inundated and thousands of people made homeless by the flooding. Many were forced to seek shelter on flood embankments. A seven-year old boy drowned in the district’s Natuapara union, according to local media.

Another 25,000 people in Kaunia sub-district of Rangpur District were marooned when the River Tista burst its banks and washed over the embankments.

The sub-district executive officer of Kaunia, Mohammad Anwar Hossain, told IRIN relief goods had already been delivered by the ministry and would be distributed among union council chairmen.

Farmers are not the only ones affected: More than 50,000 quarry workers in Jaintyapur sub-district of Sylhet were left without the means to support their families after heavy rains flooded the area’s quarries.

Flooding is a recurring occurrence in low-lying Bangladesh, with monsoon flooding an annual occurrence. On average, every seventh year a severe flood hits the country, say experts.

IRIN http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?Reportid=85839

Giving things to people is a very generous act of kindness.  In some cases the recipient’s life is changed.  But in many cases this will also create a dependency to be established and the next need is met with an open hand.  Not all things fall into this category; a life saving drug for example is often a pure gift and the recipient has no ability to utilize it beyond its purpose.  But what if things could be different for other things that are essential to life?  What if the person getting the gift is also getting an  income , a skill, a craft to be used to provide an income?  One such item is a simple shelter , a home.   

Is it far fetched to think this is possible?  Not at all, and in honesty it is not a new thought but when it is applied to housing it is new indeed.  Housing unfortunately has a high cost associated with it.  Higher than many things people who live in poverty need and higher than most people are accustomed to giving.  For example it is easy to give a pair of shoes or an article of clothing but how does one give someone a simple shelter, a house?  After all, a simple shelter or adequate living space offers more positive benefit than anything else.

In simple terms the occupant needs to become part of the solution.  They must be given the skills and tools as well as the materials to build shelters for their communities or geographic regions.  Once skilled and employed their ability to overcoming the challenges of poverty has begun.  Once employed, like everywhere else on earth, much can be done with the income: improve education, health, wellbeing, child care and development, personal security, and much more.  The journey to the end of poverty can begin.

Giving things to people is a very generous act of kindness.  In some cases the recipient’s life is changed.  But in many cases this will also create a dependency to be established and the next need is met with an open hand.  Not all things fall into this category; a life saving drug for example is often a pure gift and the recipient has no ability to utilize it beyond its purpose.  But what if things could be different for other things that are essential to life?  What if the person getting the gift is also getting an income , a skill, a craft to be used to provide an income?  One such item is a simple shelter , a home.  

Is it far fetched to think this is possible?  Not at all, and in honesty it is not a new thought but when it is applied to housing it is new indeed.  Housing unfortunately has a high cost associated with it.  Higher than many things people who live in poverty need and higher than most people are accustomed to giving.  For example it is easy to give a pair of shoes or an article of clothing but how does one give someone a simple shelter, a house?  After all, a simple shelter or adequate living space offers more positive benefit than anything else.

In simple terms the occupant needs to become part of the solution.  They must be given the skills and tools as well as the materials to build shelters for their communities or geographic regions.  Once skilled and employed their ability to overcoming the challenges of poverty has begun.  Once employed, like everywhere else on earth, much can be done with the income: improve education, health, wellbeing, child care and development, personal security, and much more.  The journey to the end of poverty can begin.

To become with shelter projects, please visit http://www.sheltertheworld.com

Although providing  simple shelter is our focus at both “Shelter the World” and IADDIC Shelters, they are not in and of themselves the solution to these peoples problems but they do offer some surprising opportunities.  We believe that shelter is just one component of a very complex problem and where to start is not easily understood.  But one thing for sure, if nothing is done to radically change the overall conditions associated with inadequate shelter, then countless billions of people will be subject to this extreme deprivation for their entire life.   You see, Kibera is filled with many problems including a lack of adequate shelter.  It is just one place; for  slums are fast becoming the dominant settlement type in the world.   

Beyond the inadequacy of the shelter these people live in, the days are filled with challenges most of us can only imagine and true comprehension is limited only by our decision to deepen our awareness.  Going to a place like Kibera is not something most people would ever consider doing.  As a matter of fact, unless you are going to help someone who lives there, there really is no rational reason to go.  The only attraction you will find there are the people themselves.  There are no amusement parks, no beaches, and no historic architecture to capture on your digital devices.  And there are over one million of them living in this one place.  Multiply this across the many slums that exist in the world and the number skyrockets into the billions. 

Because there is no reason to go there many of us reading this simply can not comprehend the magnitude of the problems.  As such we are providing this video series, produced by The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs  to take you deep into Kibera so that you can experience first hand what life there is like.

Since you are seeing this information on the internet, I can confidently say the odds are high that you do not live in Kibera, nor do you know what it looks like from the inside.  A place where shelter is inadequate, food is scarce, health care in non-existent, and hope is about the only thing of value. I want to warn you though; the content presented here is shocking. 

Shocking because it shows real people living in very desperate conditions, and to be honest, desperate almost seems too inadequate a word to truly depict the reality. 

If you do nothing else about what you see here, please do two things:  tell a friend of yours what you learned.  Tell them about a social enterprise called IADDIC Shelters and the work we are doing.  Then visit the IADDIC Shelters website and see what we are using as a shelter solution.  

Part 1: Jane and Carroll

In this First of this 5 part series we introduce you to Jane, a mother of seven when you meet her, is giving birth to her most recent and eighth child.  She will tell us what it is like to live in a place like Kibera and what it is like to have no food to feed her children.  The miracle of birth that you will be a partner of is most telling of a life of hardship.  You will also meet Carroll who fairs no better; with 3 children, no husband and no permanent job her prospects are life and death, starvation versus something to eat.

 Slums are emerging as the dominant settlement type in many sub-Sahara cities including those in South Africa and Nigeria.  In the past, conventional wisdom suggested slum dwellers were less vulnerable to incidents of disease and hunger.  However, recent reports have begun to show otherwise, In addition, residents of slums are less educated and are subject to very high unemployment rates.

 According to Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, ”African cities must be strengthened to generate substantial income if city managers are to meet the ever increasing demand for better infrastructure and enhanced services ” including shelter.  President Yar’Adua blamed African cities for failing to act as engines of economic development citing ”The cities should provide avenues for national prosperity, but instead of that, they only breed slums,” he said.  The slums are a product of the informal nature of settlement and a lack of planning for the poor by government officials.  Additionally, informal settlements often face the brunt of natural and man-made disasters, such as landslides, as well as earthquakes and tropical storms making the burden to replace services more challenging.

 Painting a clear picture of the condition, UN-HABITAT Executive Director, Dr Anna Tibaijuka, said that about eight per cent of the African populations had no homes.  It is estimated that the population of Africa is 955 million people and has been growing exponentially over the past century.  This meant over 76 million people are without a home.  Based on an average family of 5, Africa is in need of 15.3 million homes.

 Much of the continent is also in need of fresh water supplies, adequate sanitation, durable housing, adequate living space and secure tenure ”Even if the rate of slum formation drops, we need to be under no illusion that the continuing fast expansion of towns and cities will make it difficult to improve living conditions” she said.

 Tibaijuka, however, said that her organization was prepared to work in active collaboration with African governments to develop and implement programs capable of eliminating slums on the continent

 There are also private sector businesses willing to weigh in to help deliver solutions.  One such company is IADDIC Shelters, a social enterprise committed to working with UN-HABITAT and government bodies to improve the living conditions of slum dwellers by offering shelters specifically designed to be low cast, durable, and improvements over currently available building materials.   The challenge is to be able to provide affordable shelters quickly to stem the tide.  Otherwise the condition of affecting the urban poor will simply continue to get worse. 

There is no denying these slums took a long time to form, however; the rate of expansion has continued to accelerate as the rural population has migrated to the urban centers.  Extreme measures need to be initiated with respect to infrastructure and shelter if the slum residents are to have an opportunity to live in dignity.

How about a change? Why not compare yourself and your home to what other in the world have? You may just come away feeling like you have something pretty good.

Some things are easy to compare: for instance it is pretty easy to see how we stand with our car or the homes in our neighborhood. Other things are more difficult to measure because either information isn’t available or the things we compare are “out of sight”.

In this video we show how the US homeowner compares to homeowners from other places. This is a simple comparison and only takes a minute to review. I think you will come away feeling pretty good about your home and maybe even learn something about the rest of the world.

Interestingly enough one of two things has happened. All of a sudden you may like your home or you are saying to yourself, “how can this be”? I tend to do both.

What we do not understand is how can a problem so pervasive and large exist in the modern age?

We are trying to change these conditions through various programs, products, and initiatives. IADDIC Shelters is a social enterprise focused on delivering shelter to those who do not have. Please join us in that effort by linking here and staying informed about issues of global houselessness.

Azharuddin Ismail, 9, played the character of Salim as a child in the film, a rags-to-riches romance about a poor Indian boy competing for love and money on a television game show.

Ismail’s tarpaulin-covered home in a teeming slum was one of several shanties, illegally built along a drain, that were demolished by local authorities in Mumbai, India’s financial capital and entertainment hub.

“When they came I was sleeping, they shook me awake and one policeman even threatened me,” Ismail, surrounded by half-broken suitcases filled with clothes and utensils, told Reuters.

“What can I do if they have demolished my house? I will sleep out in the open.”

A poster of “Slumdog Millionaire,” signed by director Danny Boyle, fluttered from the only wall of Ismail’s shanty still standing. Open sewers run nearby and it had no running water.

Authorities said the shanties had been demolished earlier but had sprung up again on the same spot.

“The shanties are all touching a drain that has to be cleaned before the advent of the monsoons,” said U.D. Mistry, the local official in charge of the demolition drive.

Earlier this year, there was an outcry after pictures emerged of “Slumdog Millionaire’s” child stars living in squalor despite the movie’s box-office success and eight Academy Awards.

The film also sparked controversy for its name, deemed by some to be offensive to slum dwellers, and its treatment of the cast. Its depiction of the lives of poor Indians was dubbed “poverty porn” by sections of the media.

In February, the housing authority of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said they would give Ismail and fellow child star Rubina Ali new houses. But Ismail’s mother, Shameem, said the family is now at the mercy of the rains.

“We also heard that the government had promised us houses, but what happened? We are still homeless,” she said. “My son has brought glory to the country, shouldn’t he get some credit?”

(Writing by Tony Tharakan; Editing by Matthias Williams and Paul Tait)

 Company making homes in a bag

Impact Award

 Many individuals and organizations have lent helping hands to serve the world’s homeless population, but one Flower Mound company is doing all it can to help the ‘houseless’ too.

 IADDIC Shelters LLC created a portable shelter product-literally a complete ‘building in a bag.’ A completely assembled IADDIC is shrunk down and vacuum-packed in a compact 8-foot tall bag and can be sent to those in need of immediate shelter, such as natural disaster victims.

 There is no question that the IADDIC shelters are the easiest to erect housing concept yet created-and Richard Grabowski, CEO of IADDIC Shelters, said it is designed to last as long as a normal dwelling does in similar environments. And each model and size is less than $2,000.

 Though IADDIC is a for-profit business, Grabowski said the company will partner with nonprofit organizations that use the shelter to help people in need. Through IADDIC, the idea is for people wishing to help victims of natural disasters to purchase the shelter through IADDIC and the shelter company will deliver the product -a tax benefit for the donator.

 After a long and tedious design process, Grabowski said his company has patents in 39 countries and has a model available for showing, which is “the greatest.”

 ”Having models to show people is exciting because it is the culmination of years of research and prototyping, “he said. “It is one thing to tell people what you have and something completely different to be able to say, ‘Let me show you.”’ Grabowski said when he shows people his model, the conversation invariably turns to world conditions – and there is a theme in all of them, he said.  “People know a problem exists but were not aware folks are working diligently to help solve the problem,” he said.

 IADDIC has had inquires for shelters totaling 4 million to date. To make his dream of mass producing and shipping the instant shelters a reality, though, one thing stands in Grabowski’s way: raising the $500,000 needed to enter the market.

 ”Once funding is in place we will be able to package and sell the products to customers who are waiting,” he said.  His goal for this year, Grabowski said, is to enter the market and deliver more than 100,000 shelters in his first five years.  “We are on the verge of moving IADDIC from thought, through concept and into reality. With the development work behind us, we are now prepared to enter the market,” he said. “Everything we do we ask ourselves, ‘How is what we are doing right now going to get a shelter into the hands of someone who needs it?’”

 Fort Worth Business Press

 By Aleshia Howe

 ahowe@bizpress.net