Over 200 students accompanied by their teachers helped build 5 homes for low-income families in Beius and Oradea
On Friday, Habitat pentru Umanitate Beius concluded this year’s volunteer season, hosting 24 volunteers from the Pentecostal Theological School “Betel”. Making a year-end balance sheet, Habitat Beius enjoyed good support from the local community and especially from young people. Throughout this year, over 200 pupils from Beiuş, Ştei and Oradea, as well as from international schools, helped to build five homes for needy families enrolled in the association’s program. In total, from March to November, students completed more than 1500 hours of volunteering! As such, Habitat hosted volunteers from Beius from the “N. Bolcaş” Pedagogical High School and the National College “Samuil Vulcan”, from National College “Avram Iancu” in Stei and from Oradea from the Economic College “Partenie Cosma” and the Pentecostal Theological High School “Betel”. In addition to these schools, students from two schools from abroad – Herlufsholm School, Denmark and Le Rosey, Switzerland, also came to volunteer.
“We’re happy to see that in the past few years, more and more youth, students from high schools have joined our efforts to support less fortunate families, to have a decent, liveable and healthy home. They’ve taken the example of some schools from abroad who helped us, starting from 15 years ago. Our joy is so great, that year after year the number of Romanian students who are involved in our projects is growing, reaching 200 this year!” said Emil Popa, program director at Habitat pentru Umanitate Beius.
The young volunteers have helped in almost all the stages of building of homes, from the making of rebar reinforcements and pouring of foundations, to the raising of walls, insulating and carrying out the finishing works. The 200 students joined the efforts of companies from Oradea such as Celestica, Sykes, Eberspaecher, Smartware, Adeplast and Compania de Apa Oradea who supported us materially or with over 350 volunteers on Habitat pentru Umanitate’s projects.
“Although I’ve also been a volunteer with other NGOs, today’s activities seems great. Besides workings with colleagues and friends, we’ve helped a family who lives in precarious conditions and I’ve also learnt lots of useful things. We are also building a home and now with what I’ve learnt here, I can help with putting up the insulation on our own home” said Andrei, a student in 11th grade.
Habitat pentru Umanitate Beius, in its 20 years of activities, has built more than 300 new homes and has helped a further 1500 people in 24 localities in Bihor county, with construction materials, renovations, repairs and other types of assistance relating to housing.
