Scope
The Aasha Build is primarily a community service project, organized in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, to build concrete, cemented houses in a slum area, a few hours from Bangalore. The project will involve an intensive 8-day build, with an aim to construct 5-6 houses, providing shelter to about 12-15 families in the village. The team will be staying in one of the houses in the village for the entire duration of the trip.
Further, 6 days on the site will be spent on the following:
• Team building activities, to ensure that the team adapts to its new environment.
• Ice breaking sessions with the local community to facilitate a fulfilling stay in the slum area.
• Personal interaction with slum-dwellers to obtain a better understanding of their daily issues.
• Field analysis of the practice of self-help groups and microfinance, believed to be prevalent in the local neighborhood.
• Documenting the experience of living with the local community and providing physical labor in constructing houses for the community
Objectives
• To provide an immediate cost-effective response to the housing crisis through the provision of safe, durable houses
• To interact with the slum community and develop a better understanding of the problems they face in their day-to-day lives.
• To study the practice of self-help groups, microfinancing and income generation practices in poor communities in India, as a solution to the incessant problem of unequal opportunity and to generate awareness among the community in need.
• Scope for enhanced income of families as they use the households for income generation such as tailoring units, tea stalls, eateries or petty shops
• To create and facilitate a sustainable model of the project through an intensive, entrepreneurial social awareness campaign, through documenting the entire course of our project to encourage youth from Singapore to replicate the effort on a recurring basis.
Timeline
A snapsot of the timeline is as follows:
