House build projects in India
| country: | India |
| departures: | 2008: 18 Oct, 8 Nov |
| price: | From £545 deposit + £2000 fundraised (55% to charity) (9 days) including UK flights. Self funders pay £545 deposit + £900 (9 days) including UK flights + £500 or more fundraised or donation (100% goes to charity). This trip can also be booked without flights |
the amazing things you'll be doing
Challenge overview: Two billion people worldwide live in poverty housing, many of these people earn less than US$2 per day. Volunteers are desperately needed to rebuild a community. Taking responsible tourism to developing countries will aid a UN Development Programme.
A community challenge provides an exciting opportunity for individuals and teams to travel and work closely with people of another culture and to make an actual difference to their lives. Building a home for someone else is a unique experience that opens your eyes to the plight of others who do not have the basic, decent shelter that most of us take for granted. It is a physical and emotional experience and volunteers often come away knowing a great deal more about themselves than they did beforehand.
All it takes to participate in a community challenge is enthusiasm and a desire to help. No other abilities are required as there will be skilled supervisors on hand to show you what to do. Working in partnership with low-income families to build decent homes, your community challenge will help to break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness which blights their lives.
"I feel as though I have crammed a whole year's experience into seven incredible days. I left with the satisfying knowledge that I’ve made a positive impact on somebody's life. On an emotional level, I feel as though I have bonded with the team and the community to the degree where I have both gained and lost a family in the space of a week. In the community itself, I feel that I’ve been shown some incredible things - such as hope, inspiration, and a clear established vision for a sustainable future. I have returned home a much better person, with a clearer perspective and more positive attitude to life. It has been a very emotional journey, one which I hope to repeat again next year.”
Louise Llewellyn-Jones, South Africa community challenge, October 2007
Substandard housing can endanger the health and safety of its occupants, erode their hope and self-worth and impair their children's ability to succeed in school. Your community challenge will play a huge part in eradicating these issues. Families who have neither the capital nor the credit available to buy or rent adequate shelter are forced to live in dwellings that are unable to withstand the annual monsoons, without access to clean water or sanitation systems. The high cost of housing leaves low-income families little money for basic necessities like food, clothing and health care. By the end of 2007, 1.25 million people worldwide were living in 250,000 decent, affordable homes built by schemes such as these. Volunteers will help to build desperately needed homes for those affected by poverty housing. Habitat for Humanity are currently working in Bangalore.
A community challenge provides an exciting opportunity for individuals and teams to travel and work closely with people of another culture and to make an actual difference to their lives. Building a home for someone else is a unique experience that opens your eyes to the plight of others who do not have the basic, decent shelter that most of us take for granted. It is a physical and emotional experience and volunteers often come away knowing a great deal more about themselves than they did beforehand.
All it takes to participate in a community challenge is enthusiasm and a desire to help. No other abilities are required as there will be skilled supervisors on hand to show you what to do. Working in partnership with low-income families to build decent homes, your community challenge will help to break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness which blights their lives.
"I feel as though I have crammed a whole year's experience into seven incredible days. I left with the satisfying knowledge that I’ve made a positive impact on somebody's life. On an emotional level, I feel as though I have bonded with the team and the community to the degree where I have both gained and lost a family in the space of a week. In the community itself, I feel that I’ve been shown some incredible things - such as hope, inspiration, and a clear established vision for a sustainable future. I have returned home a much better person, with a clearer perspective and more positive attitude to life. It has been a very emotional journey, one which I hope to repeat again next year.”
Louise Llewellyn-Jones, South Africa community challenge, October 2007
Substandard housing can endanger the health and safety of its occupants, erode their hope and self-worth and impair their children's ability to succeed in school. Your community challenge will play a huge part in eradicating these issues. Families who have neither the capital nor the credit available to buy or rent adequate shelter are forced to live in dwellings that are unable to withstand the annual monsoons, without access to clean water or sanitation systems. The high cost of housing leaves low-income families little money for basic necessities like food, clothing and health care. By the end of 2007, 1.25 million people worldwide were living in 250,000 decent, affordable homes built by schemes such as these. Volunteers will help to build desperately needed homes for those affected by poverty housing. Habitat for Humanity are currently working in Bangalore.
day-by-day itinerary
| Day 1: | International Departure. Fly from London Heathrow to Bangalore, India. | |
| Day 2: | Arrival in India. You will be met at the airport by one of our team, who will transfer you to your hotel. Brunch will be available on your arrival. In the evening you will be briefed on any local health & safety procedures. | |
| Day 3-7: | Re-building the community. You will be fully briefed on site at the beginning of each working day on the project ahead and all safety and training aspects will be covered. Over the next 5 days your challenge will involve helping to build a basic house for a local family. You will not start and finish a house in one week and as it is a rolling programme you will often carry on where the previous group left off. There will be a programme of cultural activities taking place in the evenings during the week. | |
| Day 8: | Rest & relaxation. Today there will be a little time for some hard earned R and R. Dinner will be taken in the hotel before our early morning departure to the airport for your return flight to the UK. | |
| Day 9: | Depart for UK |
volunteer travel - what's it all about?
Are you are looking for an adventurous trip with a purpose, or on a gap year or career break? If you want to make a difference in some of the world’s most important conservation areas - and in community projects - then volunteer trips are for you! Volunteers tend to have a sense of adventure, and come from a range of different backgrounds and from all over the world. Edward Abbey said 'sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul'.
highly commended
This tourism business was Highly Commended in our 2007 Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards - the largest awards of their kind in the world, and organised by responsibletravel.com in association with The Times, World Travel Market and Geographical Magazine, of the Royal Geographical Society.Since 2004, the Awards has recognised individuals, companies and organisations in travel making a big commitment to the culture and economies of local communities and helping to conserve biodiversity.
how this holiday makes a difference
 These projects help to address very real problems in these communities and make a fundamental difference to people’s lives. They provide a unique opportunity to work alongside families in need, promoting strong relationships between people and understanding between cultures. The houses that you will help to build are normally replacing very basic shelters, many of which are made from wattle and daub for example where infestations of insects can lead to ill health for the inhabitants. Monsoon rains and cyclones destroy these fragile houses annually. The strong concrete and brick houses we are helping to build lead to a better quality of life for the homeowners. They provide a secure environment for the family, a feeling of pride in their community, and a safe and healthy place for children to grow up. As part of our responsible tourism commitment we help to create local employment and support the local economy by staying in locally owned hotels, using locally owned transport, eating in local restaurants and employing local people for the programme. Local building supervisors are trained to work with our teams. Junior tradesmen are trained to manage others and those that show potential are given additional responsibilities. Many of these people are very poor and often do not have work before the programme begins. In many cases, they learn their building skills on site and then go on to earn a living with their new skills often including a much improved command of English. We also use local building materials and resources wherever possible which means reduced transportation costs. Often the bricks used in the construction process are manufactured by the families who are building and who will receive the houses, at special training centres partially funded through our challenges or using machines bought and run by local cooperatives. We ensure that all staff at home and abroad operate within our guidelines for responsible tourism, are fully educated about our responsible tourism policy, and share this knowledge with challenge participants. We encourage participants to learn about and integrate with the host communities, and have respect for local customs and cultures. We also provide thorough briefings in country during the project. We minimise our environmental and social impact by limiting group size to an average of 15-20 participants and work with our local ground agents, hotels and suppliers to minimise waste. As well as the building element of the challenge, we organise an evening programme to give our volunteers a chance to experience some of the wealth of local culture such as performances of traditional music and dance, visits to temples and shrines, local crafts and local restaurants. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've lead the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |