[Marinausa]

I very much agree with Betti. Building a house for a poor family is a great thing. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll be able to afford the maintenance, repairs or even the electricity bills, but it's a step in very much the right direction. I wouldn't have any problems donating money towards the construction work and it's a very worthy cause. I wouldn't be happy donating if I knew that $0.30 of every $1.00 give you is going to go straight into an airline's pocket.

[sarasaraseda]

Oh my goodness...this thread gives me headaches.

Someone says that they want to do some good in the world and all we get are pages of crap... You're only helping a few, you're not helping them long enough, you should help people in my country instead, you only help the rich, you're not a good enough helper.

Ridiculous!

Where is the appreciation that someone is looking to do good in the world?! Habitat for Humanity has been internationally recognized as a force for good in the world. ...of course it alone is not going to solve the world's "need". So does that mean we disregard it? As far as I'm aware the world has a lot of needs. Those "needs" reguire lots of solutions. And as far as I've read, there's nothing by hypercritcal cynicism here.

[iNYZgxNC]

With all respect, are you saying, if the applicants cant pay for it, they dont get it. That being the case, how does that help the people in need. My way of thinking is, if you are in the position to pay a mortage, you are not in need.

[Marinausa]

Recipient families are chosen through an application/interview process based off of certain social and economic criteria as well as their direct need for housing, their ability to repay a mortgage and their willingness to work with Habitat. Secondly, the reach of Habitat's charity is only as long as the arm that supports it. Home construction is simply bottlenecked by lack of necessary funds. Like any other humanitarian effort, though, change is not instantaneous. Making a difference by reaching out to thousands of needy people takes a tremendous amount of time and coordination. But, you have to start somewhere, right?

Can you just clarify what you mean by 'their ability to repay a mortgage' ?

[lalffibra]

I am a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the USA. I am the leader of a team of 12 students from the university who will be traveling to Thailand this summer (2010) to construct a new home for a needy Thai family. We are working with Habitat for Humanity, specifically through Global Villages in undergoing this mission. We are currently trying to raise about $30,000 to pay for air fare, lodging, living expenses and building supplies for the trip. We have created a professional website for our trip/mission, complete with biographies of our team members, extra information on the mission and an updated blog. The blog is updated regularly and documents our progress in anecdotal format as we try to fund raise enough money for the trip. I would greatly appreciate having our site linked to this one. Thanks for you time and cooperation!

www.h4hthailand.com

[shanice]

Maybe Iv'e missed something here, but who decides who gets this nice new house.
Then might I ask, do the other thousand's of needy Thai family's get a house also. ??

Recipient families are chosen through an application/interview process based off of certain social and economic criteria as well as their direct need for housing, their ability to repay a mortgage and their willingness to work with Habitat. Secondly, the reach of Habitat's charity is only as long as the arm that supports it. Home construction is simply bottlenecked by lack of necessary funds. Like any other humanitarian effort, though, change is not instantaneous. Making a difference by reaching out to thousands of needy people takes a tremendous amount of time and coordination. But, you have to start somewhere, right?

[VipInoLo]

Know one is going to die of the cold in Thailand if they don't have a house, a basic tin roof with 4 poles is all you need. I get so fed up with the children of yuppies who have been brought up with every opportunity in life feeling sorry that others don't have what they have. I personally don't have a University degree, I don't have any tertiary qualification and I never finished high school, my parents lived on well fair, and were evicted to the streets on many occasions when I was a child, but I can tell you I'm quite capable of standing on my own to feet and I still managed to buy a house for my self and my parents. There is no indignity to being poor or not having a house, it's just a different life style to what you have. I would not waist any money on a charity like this, It's only the habitat of wild life that needs protecting.

[shanice]

I dont know if i am missing something here but you say you want 30,000 dollars for 12 people who have no knowledge or experience to go build a house in two weeks. your nuts, the airfare, lodging and expenses alone will be more than that. plus building materials, blah blah blah.

It's been done before. More than 300,000 homes, in fact.

[VipInoLo]

I think there has been so many people in the USA who have lost there homes due to this recession, they should be concentrating on housing there own US citizens. If you have been living rough in Thailand all your life, having a house is only a luxury, not a necessity, there got there priorities totally wrong. I remember my former Thai girlfriend telling me about a neighbour up the road, she died of tuberculosis at aged 36, well in Australia you would have survived that disease, but because this woman could not afford the treatment she died, I think saving a life is more important than building a luxury that is not needed. Although the airlines do need the business.

[shanice]

After reading all of the comments, which have been very helpful by the way, I've realized there are major flaws in the description of our mission trip and how it's portrayed on our website. Many of you duly noted that outside donations should not pay for our air fare. I wholeheartedly agree with this and did not mean to lead people to believe they did. I phrased the financial goal in the way that I did to emphasize the magnitude of how much money needed to be raised altogether-- from all sorts of enterprises, not solely donations alone. I see now that the way it was phrased seemed a bit pretentious and imposing on the community we asked support from. I appreciate all of the comments that pointed this out and I aim to fix this immediately. So, as a simpler recap: We are trying to raise approximately $30,000 through all means of fund raising. The air fare for each member's trip to Thailand will be funded through means other than outside donations. (funded through the many other events we sponsor). We are asking for charitable donations to help our group pay for the necesarry building supplies and management fees needed to build a new home, offer an affordable loan, and pay for skilled management. Lastly, I apologize if I've come across as too blunt or condescending in some of my replies. I was originally a bit discouraged from all of the harsh critiques, given the enormous amount of time I've put into this, but I realize the grounds for most of the comments and am thankful they were made. Feel free to continue the discourse between the rights/wrongs, pros/cons of this trip; it really does serve some helpful insight into what I'm doing right and things that need to be altered. Thank you.

[iNYZgxNC]

Maybe Iv'e missed something here, but who decides who gets this nice new house.
Then might I ask, do the other thousand's of needy Thai family's get a house also. ??

[Marinausa]

Sounds like a great way to get your flights to Thailand paid for, spend 5 hours a day lifting bricks to make a house for two weeks, then go down to Koh XYZ for 2 weeks and get hammered. Before going back to the USA with so much smug self-satisfaction you can just about power your own laptop with it.

[shanice]

Know one is going to die of the cold in Thailand if they don't have a house, a basic tin roof with 4 poles is all you need. I get so fed up with the children of yuppies who have been brought up with every opportunity in life feeling sorry that others don't have what they have. I personally don't have a University degree, I don't have any tertiary qualification and I never finished high school, my parents lived on well fair, and were evicted to the streets on many occasions when I was a child, but I can tell you I'm quite capable of standing on my own to feet and I still managed to buy a house for my self and my parents. There is no indignity to being poor or not having a house, it's just a different life style to what you have. I would not waist any money on a charity like this, It's only the habitat of wild life that needs protecting.

I cannot find the logic or sensible nature behind this comment. The people in Thailand and hundreds of other places in the world, for that matter, are barely making it from one day to the next. We are not thrusting these people into an unwelcome or unwarranted lifestyle of luxury. It's truly not Habitat's mission to arbitrarily profile homeless or impoverished people and assume they would desire a "better" life. These families are contacting Habitat in an plea of help and we, volunteers, are reaching out to them. I'm not certain of your quoted circumstances, but these families are caring for themselves, their children, and their parental generations, many times all under one roof. These people are striving to escape such an unstable lifestyle to provide for themselves and their offspring in the future. Being poor is certainly not an indignity, but having the opportunity to not worry, day in and day out about the future of your home, your income, your children's welfare, education, is definitely a blessing. Moreover, if you would like the biographies section of our website expanded to contain the life stories of each of our members, I'd be happy to do that. We are not the sons and daughters of yuppies, who were born silver spoon in hand. We have worked hard to get where we are, and we acknowledge the privledges granted to us that many people do not have, and are utilizing them to create awareness for certain global issues that we feel sentiment towards.

[shanice]

I appreciate everyone's comments and am very much aware now that the mission and motives behind our trip are very much misunderstood and misinterpreted.

First of all, I believe there are some misconceptions on how Habitat for Humanity works, its partnership with Global Villages, and its general goals as a non-profit organization.

Habitat for Humanity and Habitat for Humanity International is solely fueled by donations from supporting entities. The organization does not merely have $30,000 dollars or 1 million baht to give a needy family as someone proposed. All of the money generated towards constructing a new home and offering affordable loans for the buyer comes directly from outside donations.

So who organizes events, creates awareness, and solicits support from the community for such a trip? Volunteers do. Habitat's money does not simply raise itself. Volunteers are the engines behind this revenue. We are the faces of Habitat's purpose and in participating in local and international builds we raise awareness for such global issues such as poverty and sub-standard housing. Without our volunteer labor or enthusiasm for what we do the entire driving force behind Habitat's income and mission would fall apart. Volunteers get their hands dirty, their faces sweaty, and their backs sore-- all for the love of the service. They share their experiences working locally or overseas with their friends, their communities, and anyone else who wants to learn, and in turn, their efforts are recognized by more and more people. The effect: Habitat receives more support, employs more volunteers, builds more homes, and changes more lives.


I find it somewhat disheartening our cause as become so misconstrued in this thread. We are not simply mindless students sauntering around our college campus waiting for other's to pay our way across the globe so we can have a relaxing holiday. We work around the clock in many more ways than asking for donations in trying to raise our funds. Each team member devotes 10-12 hours every week organizing individual events, promotions, and part-time jobs to collect money for the overall fund. We throw bake sales, date auctions, charity concerts, eating contests, bar nights, spaghetti dinners, airport rides, sports tourneys, comedy shows, lecture series, etc. The list goes on and on. Not to mention, a lot of our money is directly raised from simple manual labor, we spend almost every weekend raking leaves, painting homes, chopping wood, collecting trash, etc. We are sacrificing a huge portion of our free time, academic curriculum and "typical college saga" of crazy antics to participate in this trip and provide for these people.

MichaelJRocks: I urge you to invest a little bit of your time to volunteering at a Habitat build. Many of your critiques can be justified by witnessing the enthusiasm, spirit and collaboration of dedicated volunteers. We don't claim to be veteran construction workers or seasoned carpenters, but that's precisely the beauty of Habitat's mission: we are proud to be students, with an eclectic mix of academic concentrations and physical attributes, most of which do not include home construction. Our desire to make this difference vastly outweighs our inadequacies with a hammer or cordless drill. Check out Habitat for Humanity's website and learn how the other 300,000 homes were constructed.

Why not do a local build within US's own borders or even NC?

We do. All the time. The UNC-Chapel Hill Habitat for Humanity chapter supplies two large groups of students every weekend to local builds in Orange County. We are one of the most acclaimed and productive student Habitat chapters in the nation. We also invest a lot of our time into community outreach and tutoring. In fact, we have such a dedicated population of enthusiastic volunteers we also sponsor two, annual international trips to raise awareness for global poverty and sub-standard housing.

[Hmwmzian]

I dont know if i am missing something here but you say you want 30,000 dollars for 12 people who have no knowledge or experience to go build a house in two weeks. your nuts, the airfare, lodging and expenses alone will be more than that. plus building materials, blah blah blah.

[L8fGLM4d]

Michael: in that case I need to take this opportunity to draw your attention to a highly efficient charity helping poor rural Thais get an education
http://www.thaistudentcharity.org/
they won't be spending your money on airfare for sure.

sorry about being off the topic of Habitat for Humanity.

[fameintatenly]

"Charity begins at home".

North Carolina has been hit hard by the recession, after years of losing jobs due to industries moving to other countries.

I would like to see more existing homes in this country rehabilitated and sold at a reasonable cost and interest rate.

Afterthought: In all fairness, I should add that I do not presume to know what motivates the hearts and minds of those students.