My first volunteering with Habitat

By Juraj Bobula

When I first heard of the volunteering concept in Habitat for Humanity, my ears twitched, recognizing a genuine product, designed to bring about true changes, rather than making the affluent feel good they’ve done a thing to help solve out world’s problems.

To volunteer with Habitat, you not only need to take precious days off from your regular job, you are also required to pay in a not so small contribution towards the costs of the housing project. But I guess after one’s made the decision, this is easy to bear.

And one gets a rich reward for all these efforts. From day one I knew my holiday was in good hands: weeks before the Big Build event in Romania, which was my volunteering experience, e-mails began streaming to my inbox encouraging to fundraise, informing about the project and raising expectations.

I realized that there will be further about 150 volunteers from Northern Ireland, and that the Northern Irish Habitat office set before itself an uneasy task to build 10 homes in just 5 days to commemorate 15 years of its work. I got detailed itineraries and knew there’s someone on the other end to take care of my food, lodging, safety and travel: a concept not very dissimilar with a package tour.

When we arrived at Beius, a small town on the uphill to Romanian Carpathians where the houses were to be built, we found our accommodation, received information packs and protective helmets, and met a large group of Irish volunteers whose enthusiasm and jolliness was hard not to contract.

Coming to the site Monday morning I saw foundations already laid and all trusses, timber, plaster, other construction materials and tools prepared, toilets, info area, meal tent and cleaning area neatly arranged to make our time on the site as efficient as possible.

Truly, there was a lot of eyebrow-rising for me on the first day. With more than two hundred people on the site, of which each was eager to lend a helping hand, this could have ended in a catastrophe were it not for immaculate organization of the site, work, and individual groups.

It has not surprised me then that on Friday complete houses, with all fittings and floors, were dedicated to ten families of former orphans. During those five days, I learned not only how to nail, cut and glue styrene insulation to the outer shell and coat it with plaster, put inside walls and add the final finishing layer on the house: I observed how such low-cost houses come into existence, from first truss until the last roof tile. At the same time, imagine you build in an atmosphere glowing with cheer, good will and encouragement and you feel this is a true BIG BUILD.

When we presented his first ever home to Iosif, one of the beneficiaries, he burst into tears, helplessly leaning on his wife’s shoulder. You could tell how much this means to him and you just knew that you have allowed yourself to become to a part of a real answer to a real need of real people and that hope has made its home with Iosif’s family from that day. Let it be so in the days to come.

What is next?

Habitat wants people not only to read about poverty housing but do something to fight it. Join the fight against poverty housing!