The Rebuilding Centre is the base for the Architecture for Humanity and has recently been awarded a grant for $800K thereabout grant from the Bush/Clinton Fund.
AFH office is housed on the ground floor and this is where I spend most of my days here in Haiti.
Finally, I get to visit the site in which we are building houses for Digicel Foundation. Two houses are on the drawing board. House of Odeline and House for Marie. Both are workers at a local hospital and both are in line for a new house.
The first site for Papa Odeline, is a simple house for four people. The site is very marshy and water logged, which has created site issues for construction and design. The second site, much less problematic is for Marie, but a house suitable for 17 people.
Before I bore people with the projects I am currently working on I will introduce you to my 'home.' It has been affectionately called the 'Maison,' not really original as that means house in French.
It belongs to the Uncle of one of the design fellows working with us. It is very common for most Haitian's, with some money, to leave Haiti as soon as they can. This doesn't mean they don't want to come and visit, so most still own properties here.
It is very usual for NGO's to help each other out. The house we stay in is rather large, and we tend to always have a few beds spare. Currently, Global Nomads Group, an American NGO have 3 representatives staying with us. They have a strong relationship with Architecture for Humanity (AFH) and together with Students Rebuild help to fund and implement education programs for the schools we build.
Global Nomads Group basically creates education programs through visual media and technology so that the high school kids in the US can interact with the Haitian high school kids. Tools such as live video-conferencing and multi-media videos enables direct contact and provide continual relationships.
