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| (from left) Mohamed Talzeen, Nigel Cooper, Mohamed Sharif |
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| The houses near completion |
Habitat for Humanity
For a slide show of the trip, click here
Can you imagine a subdivision of 100 duplexes being built in five days? Impossible? Not when 2,000 volunteers work flat out from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity, a Christian organization founded in 1976 and promoted by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Woodstock's Project Manager, Nigel Cooper, and two builders, Mohamed Sharif and Mohamed Talzeen, who work for Ashish Jain (a contractor frequently hired by the school) donated one week of their time and considerable energy to help future homeowners build their own homes.
The three men left Mussoorie at 3 a.m. on a Sunday in late October 2006 to catch the train from Dehradun to Delhi, took a flight to Mumbai, then a 2 ½ hour taxi ride, arriving at the building site near the village of Malavli at 8:00 that evening. The closest large town to Malavli is Lonavala in Maharashtra state, between Mumbai and Pune. Outside Malavli village, Habitat workers had prepared the entire work site, approximately as large as three soccer fields, by pouring cement floors and laying the first corner of concrete blocks for 100 semi-detached, twin style duplexes. It took Jimmy Carter's Work Project one year to plan and coordinate these five days of intensive labor, including feeding and housing the 2,000 volunteers.
Each completed duplex comprises two apartments; each apartment is 360-square-feet with a living room/bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and verandah. The concrete block structures have galvanized roofs covered with clay tiles-similar in size and design to Woodstock's employee apartments recently rebuilt and renovated at Eastwood and Sunnywood.
Mr. Cooper supervised a crew of volunteers that consisted of five Canadian women, two Canadian men, two American men, one American woman, two Indian men, and the Indian couple who will move into one of the apartments. Only one of these volunteers had any prior building experience. Nigel and his crew completed two duplexes (four apartments) in five days. By patiently demonstrating each task, Nigel taught his crew members basic building skills. At the same time, he had to find meaningful jobs for each person every day. "I never worked so hard in my life," Nigel said. "We grafted the entire time-full-on. I was physically and mentally shot at the end of each day."
A typical day started at 5:30 a.m. with a taxi ride from the hotel. Crews arrived at the construction site at 5:45. After a quick breakfast, they worked from 6:00 a.m. until lunch was delivered, between 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., when they took a half-hour break. The volunteers resumed work until dinner was served at the site around 6:00 and left by 6:30 p.m. Various crews competed to see who would finish their block of flats first. A group of professional builders from Holland finished first. Nigel's team finished third-well done for amateurs taught on the job!
Mohamed Talzeen and Mohamed Sharif were assigned to other crews. Mr. Sharif, recognized for his outstanding brick work, was sent to two different duplexes for four-hour stints to help those crews catch up with the other teams. This was Mr. Sharif's first trip to Mumbai and the first time for both men to ride in an airplane. In spite of not speaking English, Mr. Talzeen and Mr. Sharif said that they made good friends with their fellow workers from around the world.
Among the celebrities who worked on the site were former President Carter, U.S. movie star Brad Pitt, former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh, Indian film star John Abraham, and former Miss World and Miss India, Diana Hayden, who, Nigel reported, "pushed a paintbrush."
At this time, India is short of 40 million homes; to keep up with population growth, 4 million homes need to be built each year. The goal of India's branch of Habitat for Humanity, the India Build Programme (also called indiaBUILDS), is to build 50,000 homes for 250,000 people in the next five years.
The Abhinay Cooperative Credit Society, Habitat's local NGO partner, selected the families who will occupy the houses on two conditions: that they contribute substantial sweat equity by helping to build their homes and take out two mortgages-the first with extremely low interest and the second, interest-free.
For the first two years of residence, Habitat families pay rent. If they pay their rent regularly and on time, rent payments are converted to mortgage payments. If a family stays in their house for 10 years, the second mortgage is halved; after 20 years, the second mortgage is completely paid off.
Woodstock School's Vice Principal Philip Jacob had the idea of sending a work team to this Habitat site in Maharashtra state, and Acting Principal Kaye Aoki helped make it happen. As the project took place during the week after Woodstock's Activity Week, it was not feasible to send faculty or staff, and no one under age 18 was allowed to work on this project. The school paid for Project Manager Cooper's transport and expenses, and Contractor Ashish Jain covered costs for sending Mr. Sharif and Mr. Talzeen.
For additional information on this and other Habitat projects in India, go to: