Houses for Yolanda victims in July

Arah Balbona (wearing a cap) of Korean Air helps build one of the houses they donated to Yolanda victims in barangay Paypay, Daanbantayan together with their employees.
(CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)

For more than a year now, 60-year-old Sarah Sabel and her family had been living in a house made of plywood and scrap metal in a s wamp area in barangay Paypay, Daanbantayan town, northern Cebu.

But their living conditions along with 126 other beneficiary families will soon change for the better when they will move to their new houses on a relocation site on July this year.

“Nalipay gyud mi og dako kay makapuyo na mi og matawag nga hayahay. Di na mi mahadlok og kalamidad kay komportable na, di pareho sa trapal-trapal ra (We are so happy that we can live in a comfortable house. We won’t be afraid of calamities anymore unlike those makeshift houses),” she told Cebu Daily News.

Sarah and her family were among the beneficiaries of social housing under a relocation project initiated by the non-government organization Habitat for Humanity and the Philippine French United Alliance in July last year.

For now, the Sabel family is living in a makeshift house in the same site where their shanty made of scrap wood and tarpaulin was blown away by supertyphoon Yolanda in November 8, 2013.

The Sabels and 126 other families were identified by a special committee composed of representatives from different sectors.

Committee
Their new houses are built on more than one hectare of land donated by the family of Daanbantayan Mayor Augusto Corro.

Each house has a land area of 30 sq.m., is made of concrete and can accommodate four to five persons.

At present, Sarah lives with her husband and 20-year old son. Her other sons, ages 19 and 24, are both in Cebu City employed as security guards.

Chay Holganza, Habitat Philippines Chief Operating Officer (COO) for disaster relief, said it is their organization’s mission to provide homes to those who really are in need.

Sweat equity
“We give top priority to those whose houses were totally damaged during supertyphoon Haiyan (international name of Yolanda), as well as to the elderly and persons with disability,” he told reporters during a site visit yesterday. Holganza said each family will be required to render 400 hours of “sweat equity.”

“Since they cannot pay in cash, they will have to pay in kind. They have to come here to help. At the same time, this will also give them a sense of ownership,” he said.

Each unit is pegged at P200,000. Volunteers have also been coming in the last few months to help finish what the organization started.

Yesterday morning, workers of a business process outsourcing firm helped laborers in the site. Last month, nearly 100 Canadians also volunteered for two weeks.

A 74-unit relocation project by Habitat and the French group was also recently completed this year.

Holganza said the organization is eyeing another project in Bogo City and another one more in Bantayan but its realization will still depend on the availability of funds.

Korean Air donated US$5,050 (approximately P227,250) yesterday for the construction of one housing unit in another relocation project in barangay Sulangan, Bantayan.