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Last October, volunteers helped build 20 houses in Lusaka, Zambia, as part of the Kenneth Kaunda Work Project, a namesake build of the former Zambian president. The project is part of Habitat's second "community of intent" in Africa.

Meeting Urban Needs
'Intentional' Neighborhoods Help Build Community
by Samantha Schroeder

	What You Can Do: • If you live in an urban area, check with your local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and volunteer to help work on urban issues. • To learn about urban poverty, visit www.unescap.org/huset/urban_poverty/index.html.

Norah Malgas has lived most of her life in Khayelitsha Township just outside of Cape Town, South Africa. Like the majority of South African townships, this one emerged from the grim past of apartheid. Having been pushed off prime real estate, early residents, such as Malgas, were forced to settle informally on demarcated land surrounding the city center.

"When we came to the township, it was full of plastic shacks," she says. "In 1986, while [I was] at work, our shack burned down." Though she didn't have much, she lost everything.

Four years later, while pregnant, she became ill as a result of her poor housing conditions. "I gave birth to twins, but they didn't survive because they were premature," she says. "Even now, I'm not very well because the shack I was staying in was like the pig stable, a cold and leaking shack."

Today, she enjoys new stability, new promise and new opportunities in her Habitat house. Hers is one of more than 1,000 built by Habitat in South Africa in the past 19 years.

Sadly, however, her earlier plight reflects the urban reality of the developing world as more and more people crowd into limited space, competing for jobs, housing and opportunities. The United Nations Secretary General estimates that by 2025, as many as half of the poor families in Africa and Asia will live in urban areas. Already, close to 30 percent of people in developing nations live below the poverty line, earning less than US$1 per day. Malgas' story--and countless more like it--highlight the human suffering behind the statistics.

It is within this reality that Habitat for Humanity and others are seeking solutions to the urban crisis. Campaigns such as the United Nations' "City Alliances" challenge and equip developing nations to attack urban poverty. Additionally, Habitat for Humanity is playing its own role. In a spirit of partnership with the people it seeks to help, a "Cities Without Slums" campaign is under way to create "intentional communities"--neighborhoods where residents choose specifically to live.

"For me, poverty is defined by the lack of choice," says Larry English, HFHI director of the urban initiative in the Africa/Middle East region. "You don't have a choice as to what job you want to do, you don't have a choice as to where you want to live, or who you want to live with, or what the values of that community are. You just have no choice. We want to create projects where the idea of 'decent community' is conceptualized right from the beginning."


A simple, decent Habitat house brings joy to this family in Durban, South Africa.

Selected through an application process, residents of such a Habitat community have the opportunity--before the building begins--to conceptualize and envision a healthy, holistic community. With their commitment, they agree to take responsibility for one another's well-being. Through months of fellowship, ministry, sweat equity and savings, homeowners participate in the social and physical development of their future community.

In its initial effort, Cities Without Slums began with the Ethembeni community, built during the Jimmy Carter Work Project 2002 in Durban, South Africa.

"Living at Ethembeni has changed my life completely," says Mambo Mkhize, a resident of the community. "Where I was staying before there was too much crime and violence almost every day. This made me and my family feel unsafe and insecure. Schools were far away, and transport cost us too much money. But now at Ethembeni schools are at a reasonable distance, and we are only 10 minutes from town."

For others, Ethembeni has reunited families that would otherwise be forced to separate. One such Habitat homeowner, Boniwe Daniso, formerly had to live on her employer's property and could not live with her four children. Now, for the first time, she and her children can live together under one roof. "God has put us near a university," she says. "I never thought about this before, but now I believe they will go to university some day."

Uniting families is clearly a benefit of creating sensible housing solutions to urban needs. Creating the forum where children can safely grow up means generating quality time for families to be together.

"[For some people], it takes two hours to get to work every day," says English. "That's four hours a day they don't spend with their family. We're talking about making better families. It's an imperative for us to move into well-located areas."

Habitat for Humanity traditionally has focused its efforts in Africa on rural housing needs. Today, however, with the implementation of Cities Without Slums, urban builds provide an opportunity to engage a variety of donors, government agencies and other volunteers committed to combating the urban housing crisis.

In fact, last October, Lusaka, Zambia, became the second city to establish a "community of intent" by hosting the Kenneth Kaunda Work Project. Homeowners from rural affiliates endured eight-hour bus rides to participate, businessmen took off their ties and put on their gloves, and volunteers from 16 nations came to build 20 houses over the course of five days. Designed to foster a voluntary spirit and strong resource base for the Zambia program, events like the KKWP can highlight and engage more stakeholders in the critical issues surrounding the urban plight.

There is still much to learn as new partners and more true urban communities develop. Habitat for Humanity cannot overcome the urban housing condition alone, but in partnership with like-minded organizations--and with innovations like Cities Without Slums--progress is being made.