Wienerberger sustain Habitat’s project “Housing for a secure future” in Oradea
In a wide partnership, 30 families from Oradea will receive homes built by themselves and helped by volunteers from the community
Oradea, 16 October 2013. In July, Habitat for Humanity Beius started a new project in Oradea, on land given by the town council, land where 30 homes will be raised for young families, for elderly with no shelter and for single mothers and their children. The project is named „Housing for a secure future” and will run over 3 years. The homes are built in twos (duplexes) or fours (quadruplexes), such that 2 or 4 families will share the same building. To date, the foundations and walls of the first homes have been raised and by the end of the year 4 homes will be finished. The complete system of Porotherm walls for these homes, including the blocks, the ceramic floor and lintels has been donated by Wienerberger Brick Systems as part of a 3 year partnership signed in 2012.
“The mission of Wienerberger is to support the development of quality homes at accessible prices, and through the partnership with Habitat for Humanity I’m happy to say that we are succeeding in achieving this important objective. In the past year, we have supported Habitat with Porotherm products in 7 projects of small and large sizes, all having a goal of providing decent homes for poor people. The project in Oradea is just one example of this constructive collaboration, in which we’re happy to have participated”, says Mr Corneliu Fecioru, Member of Administration Council, Sales and Marketing, Wienerberger, Brick Systems
The homes will be built on land made available by the Oradea Housing Administration, by Romanian and international volunteers whilst supervised by Habitat’s specialists. Every home has 2 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. Ceramic blocks and ceramic Porotherm floors, completely donated by Wienerberger are used on ground floor and and then the first floor will be from wood with sandwich type walls with mineral wool insulation, polystyrene insulation, drywall, plywood and stucco. All of this along with double glazed windows offers excellent insulation, such that the homes will be heated with much lower costs.
“This month marks 17 years since we have been helping families living in poor conditions to lead better lives. Over the years we have had the joy to see more and more companies offering their support to us to eliminate substandard shelter from the communities in which we are active. We’re happy every time a new company gets involved in helping families who don’t have decent shelter and we thank them. We were extremely happy to work with materials offered by Wienerberger because we knew how volunteer friendly they are and how quickly we can progress with work so that we can help many more families” declares Emil Popa, Program Director Habitat for Humanity Beius.
This project will provide simple, decent and accessible homes for 30 families from Oradea who are at risk of being evicted in the near future or are waiting the terms of eviction from their current homes. Habitat for Humanity Beius will mobilise over 1000 volunteers, the community, local and national companies and state institutions in the finalising of this project.
Habitat for Humanity Beius already has a partnership with the Oradea city hall through the Oradea Housing Administration (AIO). The administration made the land available and it was they who proposed over 100 families. Habitat along with AIO representatives selected future beneficiaries according to Habitat’s criteria. Every family will carry out 300 volunteer hours on their own home and a further 300 hours on the homes of other beneficiaries. In this way, a united community will be formed.
„I’m very happy to see that after just 2 week of intense work, our house is raised! I confess that at first I didn’t believe it was possible, as I knew from when I was small in our village, that you need a whole summer to raise a brick house. However with these new materials it goes really easily and quickly. I worked daily together with volunteer and I can say that it wasn’t as hard as I imagined it would be. We thank them and we thank those who helped with the materials necessary for the raising of the house of which we have dreamed for so long”, said Mariana Guias, a beneficiary of one of the homes raised in Oradea with Wienerberger materials.
Habitat for Humanity wished to mobilise communities in achieving its mission. As such, this involves local volunteers as well as volunteers from abroad, organising special events that attract media attention to the problem of poor housing. As such, in the future there will be events including „Women’s Build” in which strong ladies from the community will be involved; Building on Faith” where clergy and church goers will work alongside beneficiaries; or corporate events – where companies participate with their own volunteers and their own construction materials.
