Millard Fuller hugs two children in Costa Rica.

Youth on the Move
By Millard Fuller

I am increasingly convinced that a worldwide movement is emerging with the bold goal of eliminating poverty housing and homelessness from the face of the earth. One of the strongest signs of the growth of this movement is the mushrooming involvement of young people.

At the end of January, there were 588 official campus chapters of Habitat for Humanity at colleges, universities, and high schools in the United States and 10 other countries. Thousands of students in those chapters regularly and enthusiastically raise money and build houses with their local Habitat affiliates and in other locations. On many campuses today, the HFH chapter is the largest student organization on campus. During Habitat's Collegiate Challenge event during spring break this year, more than 8,000 students are helping build houses in various locations across the country.

The excitement among young people is not just an American phenomenon either. Last year, large contingents of youth went from both Japan and Korea to work in the Philippines at the Jimmy Carter Work Project held there. A school in Bangladesh recently sent a group of students to build in Nepal.

In January, I visited the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) in southern India, where the local Habitat affiliate sponsored a Youth Build 2000. Hundreds of youth participated, including local young people and a group from a school in Bombay.

When I spoke at a rally there, the young people were amazingly energetic. They yelled and cheered as I invited them to remain faithful and diligent in the struggle to end poverty housing and homelessness.

The current generation of adults will not end poverty housing and homelessness, though a great start is being made. But the mantle is being picked up by the youth.

Inspired by the vision of a world without shacks and a world without homelessness, and full of spiritual motivation, these young people are leading the way to a better world and a brighter future.


Millard Fuller is the founder and president of Habitat for Humanity International.


Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, April/May 2000.
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©2000 Habitat for Humanity International