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Un Techo para mi País

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Founded	1997
Area served	Global, headquarters in Santiago, Chile
Services	Housing construction and social inclusion programs
Website	www.untechoparamipais.org/english

Un Techo para mi País (UTPMP) is a Latin American non-profit organization led by university students and young professionals that works together with the inhabitants of precarious slums to eradicate the poverty affecting more than 180 million people in the region. Their intervention model consists of three stages: the construction of transitional houses; the implementation of social inclusion programs; and the development of sustainable communities. The organization's goal is to eliminate poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean through joint work between slum residents and the university students and young professionals who work for the organization. UTPMP has a presence in 19 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

History

Un Techo para mi País was founded in Chile in 1997 by a group of university students. These students, along with Felipe Berríos, S.J., were appalled by the deplorable conditions in the country's slums and felt compelled to take an active role in denouncing extreme poverty, thus giving birth to the organization. Un Techo para mi País seeks to involve society as a whole in recognizing the injustices of poverty and acknowledging its responsibility to address the lack of opportunities and the poor living conditions of the most marginalized families in Latin America and the Caribbean.

UTPMP began its international expansion in 2001 and has been reinforced since 2005 by the support of the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Un Techo para mi País is currently present in 19 countries in Latin America, and its headquarters in Chile coordinates the efforts of local offices, each of which shares basic goals and methods while adapting programs to the particular challenges of poverty in each country.

Intervention Model

The organization's model consists of three stages:

• Construction of transitional houses
• Implementation of social inclusion programs
• Development of sustainable communities

These three stages aim to empower the leaders and local residents in order to transform the slums into sustainable communities, in a process accompanied by volunteers, that creates a commitment within society to end poverty in Latin America.

Construction of Transitional Houses

The transitional house is a prefabricated, 18m² modular structure. It can be built in two days and rests on bases that raise it off of the ground and protect the structure and the family from humidity, floods and disease microbes. The family agrees to participate in the construction and make a contribution equal to 10% of the value of the house.

UTPMP volunteers building a transitional house in Peru, 2009.

If necessary, the house can be disassembled and moved to a different location in the event of a natural disaster. Houses vary slightly by geographical region; in locations with humid tropical weather, they are built with ventilation spaces. In the southern regions of Chile and Argentina, they have insulation to protect the families from the cold. To date, the organization has built 78,000 houses.

Social Inclusion Programs

The organization begins its long-term work in the slums during this stage. University volunteers work with the residents to carry out a diagnostic survey that identifies community needs and suggests possible solutions. The work aims to deepen the bonds created between volunteers and the communities by focusing on common objectives and demanding community participation in a formal planning process. The two principal tools used to achieve this are (i) Community Organizing Committees, meetings in which community leaders and volunteers analyze community issues, propose strategies and design action plans, and (ii) assemblies, a space in which decisions are made with participation from the entire community. In these meetings, various programs are implemented with the goal of responding to community needs identified by the volunteers and community leaders.

UTPMP employee participating in a social inclusion program in El Salvador.

The social inclusion programs are:

• Education: Attempts to open up educational opportunities in the slums via a teaching-learning methodology in which the students are recognized as the authors of their own lives and environments. The educational process is enhanced by involving and sharing responsibilities with the families, the community and existing formal networks. This program includes formal learning programs, which include school leveling and tutoring, and non-formal learning programs, which are creative spaces in which cognitive learning and value acquisition activities take place.

• Skills Training: Develops a set of skills, abilities and knowledge that allows the beneficiary to perform an activity or a job. Comprised of two training acitivities: technical training, which provides tools and practical knowledge linked to the exercise of a specific occupation, and job training, which provides skills and abilities that facilitate an entrance into the labor market.

UTPMP Community Organizing Committee ("Mesa de Trabajo") in Chile, 2010.

• Micro-credits: Aims to enable entrepreneurs to create and maintain a profitable business, which serves to assist in the creation of economic stability for the family. Provides skills and small loans for business capital. In this way, the micro-credit program accompanies entrepreneurs in the process of inclusion into a network of formal financial markets.

• Health: Through assistance in the problematization and raising awareness of health-related necessities, solutions are created alongisde the residents. Community meetings, training activities and workshops develop prevention programs, diagnostic tests, and the formation of links with formal networks in order to improve the quality of and access to health care for the community.

• Legal: Promotes recognition of civic rights and obligations within the community, and assists and assesses the residents in finding solutions to community and familial legal conflicts.

• Competitive Funds (Fontecho): Finances community projects that develop via the interest and inciative of the residents, oriented toward improving their quality of life. Promotes self-improvement, self-financing and the active use of local networks. Residents apply in groups to bring their projects to fruition.

Development of Sustainable Communities

In this stage, Un Techo para mi País implements plans and projects that aim to allow the slums to satisfy their basic needs in a sustainable manner, incorporating various actors in the process. These projects address common structural problems in the different slums in each country. By virtue of their complexity and scale, these programs require teams of professionals working together with the directors of each community. In the case of Chile in particular, the program directors, volunteers and young professionals who work for UTPMP attack the structural housing problem in the country, assessing and accompanying the families in the process of applying for public housing funds.

UTPMP sustainable development community in Chile.

This process includes advisors in the selection of land, community participation in the project design, and supervision in the construction of the homes. The involvement of young professionals and community leaders in programs of this size promotes the critical evaluation of public policies that affect vulnerable families, creating spaces for the proposition of improvements and alternatives.

Disaster Relief

UTPMP also has a history of working together with the international community and governments in the wake of disasters, although the organization's primary goal continues to be the development of sustainable communities through social inclusion and the construction of transitional houses. In the wake of the January 12th, 2010 Haiti earthquake, UTPMP was the first organization on the ground building houses in the country. Through an agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank providing funds, the organization aims to construct 10,000 houses in the next four years.

UTPMP constructs a transitional house for Haitians affected by the 2010 earthquake

UTPMP volunteers work with a Haitian family to build a transitional house after the January 2010 earthquake

In the wake of the March 2010 Chile earthquake, the organization built 23,886 houses and mobilized 85,989 volunteers for the constructions.

Impact in Statistics

• 400,000 youth volunteers and young professionals mobilized
• More than 77,000 transitional houses built
• Over 51,000 families in 8 countries benefitting from social inclusion programs
• Present in 19 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 45 offices in the region

2011 Goals

• Build 13,000 transitional houses
• Mobilized more than 140,000 university students throughout the region
• 210 functioning Community Organizing Committees and 400 Fontecho community improvement project funding banks
• 3,000 micro-credits given to entrepreneurs
• 4,500 people given skills training and 4,000 children participating in education programs

Awards and Recognition

• King of Spain Human Rights Prize conferred by Defensor del Pueblo, University of Alcalá, in 2011. UTPMP was recognized for its work in the defense and promotion of human rights and democratic values in Ibero-America.

• Housing and Urban Development South-South Transfer Award 2010, conferred by [[UN-HABITAT[[, the Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The prize recognized UTPMP for its mobilization of hundreds of thousands of young volunteers and the transfer of its innovative programs to 19 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Prize for contribution to the reduction of poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, given in 2010 by the Vidanta Foundation, the Secretary General of Ibero-America (SEGIB) and the Organization of American States. This prize recognizes and supports UTPMP's oustanding work in Latin America and the Caribbean dedicated to reducing poverty and inequality.

• Latin American Prize for NGO and Corporate Social Responsibility, given by the Foro Ecuménical Social in 2010. Its objective is to reward initiatives that improve community conditions and stimulate the spirit of solidarity.

• Best Practices in Policies and Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, given by the UN Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), recognizing UTPMP as having the best practices and work with and for young people in the region in 2009.

• UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Award, given in 2009 by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme and recognizing the outstanding contributions of our work in the area of human settlements. This is the most prestigious prize at the international level given to work in this area.

External links

• UTPMP Website (English)
• UTPMP Website (Spanish)
• Overview of UTPMP's work with the Inter-American Development Bank in the wake of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake.
• UTPMP's official Facebook page (Spanish)
• UTPMP's official Twitter account
• UTPMP's Precaria campaign (Spanish)