I have a series of hotel reviews to be posted here. But before I did that and leave you wondering what the heck I was doing in Borneo lately, first and foremost, I would like to tell you about our flagship project. It is called House Build (HB) Project, held in conjunction with the World Habitat Day 2009 onwards.
The HB Pilot Project was introduced in 2009. The aim of this project is to provide comfortable shelters for hardcore urban poor families whose dilapidated houses were in serious need of repair. A team of international and local volunteers spent one to three months repairing the houses in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah; Kuching, Sarawak and Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu.
We worked in partnership with an international NGO who is in-charge of mobilising groups of volunteers (local and international) to execute the construction work on site. We just pay for the building material and those volunteers will repair or re-built the house at no cost.
I was actively involved in monitoring two projects in Kota Kinabalu, in which I have to flew to KK on monthly basis and also a few trips to Kuching projects (at the final stage), just to make sure the houses were built according to the specification before the handover ceremony by The Hon Minister to the owner held in January 2010.
I don’t involved in site visit for 2010 projects.
Anyway, kudos to the volunteers! They nailed it although it was so difficult to construct new roofing system for the dilapidated houses built on the water in KK. They don’t have scaffolding or any other technical equipments (they are volunteers, remember?). They also manage to repair two houses in Terengganu during the monsoon season in spite both houses were technically “submerged” in the flood. And the best part is, they pulled it off with a VERY LIMITED BUDGET per house.
Any company with extra RM20k to spend, and wishes to be involved in HB Project 2011, as part of your CSR programme (and get tax exemption summore), contact me!
Kota Kinabalu projects
House 01
House 02
Kuala Terengganu projects
House 01
House 02
2 comments:
what an amazing project, nuyu :) aku mmg selalu pikir how much re-painting a house can help people to have a sense of belonging to their homes. developer/management/council should really make some kind of regulation to have flats/apartments painted every 5 years ke kan... tak pun masa awal2 cat tu guna high quality paints so akan long lasting sikit. i rasa surely akan make people feel different about their homes, wanting to take care of it a bit more. i really like simple projects macam ni :)
Thank you, Kayla. We also change the wall and roofing materials. (flooring is a rare case) Newly-coated paint made it looks like a million bucks for them!
I love this project especially when they smile and continously thanking our little effort that 've changed their whole life.
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