What & Why We Build Choosing Recipients Recipients’ Responsibilities Where We Build
Recipients’ Responsibilities
House recipients are required to work alongside our crew. Most recipients are single moms or elderly or infirm, so they may draft other family to help us.
We also replace floors in homes that are secure but have dirt floors that are impossible to clean and harbor parasites. And we replace leaky metal roofs. The recipients of these projects pay 25% of the cost of the renovation.
Concepcion builds her bajareque home, San Pablo La Laguna
A fundamental concern of non-profits operating in Guatemala is to avoid feeding into a culture of Paternalism. Guatemalans are famously hard working. Still there can be a tendency to wait for the next proyecto (any non-profit project) to visit the village. This predictable trap of passive entitlement is one we try to avoid by requiring considerable and continuous involvement by the family in the construction of their house and, with GHA's co-op model, the homes of their neighbors.
Our mission always is to subsidize the family’s efforts to provide a decent home for themselves.
