My House, My Home, My Hovel

Posted on 20. Jan, 2009 by Krista in What's New

If you’re wondering why the silence on this blog, well, Nic and I just came back from a restful one week in Kuching right after we got home from Langkawi. (Kuching is Nic’s hometown.)

We decided to do a pre-CNY (that’s Chinese New Year) break instead of the usual CNY holiday because frankly, boarding planes during a Malaysian festivity is not a nice experience. It’s the balik kampung rush no matter where you are. This year, we’re staying put to celebrate CNY here in Penang with my parents and aunts and the whole lot in Green Lane. (Which probably means you’re going to see me online when I am not playing mah-jong offline!)

Kuching was a big contrast to Penang. When we arrived at the Kuching International Airport, it was raining and had been raining all day! To top it all, parts of the lower lying areas of the Cat City was flooded!

The break we had was truly a break! Staying home most of the time and not being able to get out. I mean, let’s face it….I really don’t like the idea of walking about in puddles of rain water and getting wet!

Discussing the website...from left: Georgette, James and Krista at Starbucks, Kuching

But that wasn’t all – we got to meet up with James Lo, the VP of Habitat for Humanity Kuching, thanks to Georgette. Georgette volunteers with Habitat (when she’s not reporting with the local newspaper). Together, they had asked us to help them get their website in order.

Habitat operates on a concept of building houses for the poor. Basically it serves people who live in such hovels that you would not believe this is happening in our Modern Malaysia in all our Bolehism!

We saw the photos of the shacks (if they can be called that) and the Before and After photos. Seeing those ‘homes’ in their previous condition, you would be quite willing, as most volunteers are, to hitch up your pants/skirts and roll up your sleeves to help build them a house.

Nic and Georgette

But lest this seems like giving houses away for free (and we know how people abuse the concept of free), the home owners need to plough back 400 hours of their own time either in helping to build their house or if needed, other houses.

Which is fair and square, methinks. You can only be proud of something you helped build and a home, your home, is the best place to start. Especially if the rest are also volunteering their time (anyone can volunteer to help build a house and you don’t have to be a master house builder to help.)

Other than that criteria, the home owners also need to pay back, little by little the costs of the building materials over a stretch of 10 to 20 years. Mostly the sum is something the home owner can afford like RM150 per month.

I think this is a great effort and should be heartily supported. That’s why we decided from the start to sponsor the website design for Habitat Kuching.

Habitat Kuching uses it to connect and communicate with its volunteers (either tourists passing by Kuching or even locals like you and me), thank its longstanding local sponsors (Sarawak companies which sponsor cement, planks and other building materials) and raise more money for its ongoing programmes.

At Redbox Studio, we do have a Community give-back programme where we sponsor/design websites for free, usually for non-profit organizations (how to get our help? Email us and let us know what you are about and what you need exactly).

I believe that no matter what skills we have, we can use our talents for the betterment of the community. It so happens that we have our design skills so we’re using this to help people who are helping other people. You don’t have to be Bill Gates to start doing good.

We can all do great things with love, someone once said and I say we can all do great things with our skills and talents.

I wish we were able to help out with some house-building but it was raining so I am crossing fingers that we get to do stuff the next round we land in Kuching.

(Habitat Kuching just completed building its 50th house. See the volunteers in action in Habitat Kuching photos and then you’ll feel so blessed that you live in a regular apartment!).

I know I do!

Tags: building homes for the poor, habitat for humanity kuching, langkawi, redbox studio community give-back programme, starbucks, the spring kuching, website for NGO