Zakher Gaballah Zakher and his family have partnered with Habitat for Humanity Egypt to add a roof and extra room onto their house.

Meeting Cultural Needs (continued)

Habitat has been successful achieving this in large part because CEOSS already has established its own reliable presence in local communities.

"Where Habitat for Humanity is able to cooperate with organizations who have been successful in building community," Haskell says, "then we are already a good distance down the road toward accomplishing the ultimate aim: decent communities where people can live and work and grow into all that God intended."

Nabil Abadir, general director for CEOSS and board member of Habitat for Humanity International, echoes that sentiment.

"Together we can make things possible," he says. "We can open doors that might be closed. There's a lot to do together."

Community development initiatives supported by CEOSS and similar organizations, according to Haskell, lay the foundation on which Habitat can build. "They lay the foundation of local leaders and grassroots committees with vision, capacity, commitment, competence to align with Habitat's mission, vision and values that propel them forward," he says.

Habitat works with local families in need to build, renovate or add on to existing structures, providing no-profit, no-interest loans of approximately 6,000 Egyptian pounds (about US$1,000), which families repay in three to four years.

Throughout the country, Habitat homeowners maintain a 95-percent current repayment rate, and that reaches 100 percent in some communities. With Habitat's revolving fund, this means more resources for more houses, but Makar sees it also as a manifestation of the HFH/CEOSS partnership.

	Habitat homeowner Ibrahim Bahbuh Girgis worked with local volunteers to rebuild his house into a decent, affordable home.

When HFH Egypt enters a community, it joins a pre-existing community development organization with local connections, knowledge and commitment. Makar attributes prompt repayment rates to a family selection process that thrives on local relationships and trust.

He also credits the notion of peer accountability: One homeowner delivers his own timely payments lest a neighbor in need miss the same opportunity to improve his substandard living conditions.

Fifty-year-old Zakher Gaballah Zakher is one such homeowner. A husband, farmer and father of six, Zakher was born in the house where he lives today and has partnered with Habitat to improve it so his family can live "apart from the animals" and enjoy a more stable environment.

The addition of a second room also will allow Zakher's oldest son Ashraf to marry and return with his bride to the home, thus extending the family under one roof--an Egyptian tradition.

In so many ways, then, a house in Egypt, according to Kamal, means much more than walls, a roof and a door. It's where children grow up and generations carry on. It's where people live, and many times it's where they work and earn the means to live. "The house means everything to Egyptian families," he says, "and Habitat touches the humanity in them. We want to help them demonstrate their dignity."

Habitat for Humanity in Egypt is building on 15 years of history in the country, of associations with organizations like CEOSS, of partnerships with local families, of trust and compassion and innovations that bring people together in a true spirit of cooperation.

The need for housing--and for relationships--is greater now than ever, and so is HFH Egypt's drive to address it. It's just this spirit of collaboration--along with a deep commitment--that will carry Habitat for Humanity's work in Egypt. When viewed in its entirety, the housing need in Egypt is overwhelming. Habitat's goal there is to build houses with 10 percent of those in need and to do so by 2020. That means 400,000 families, 2 million people, will have partnered with HFH Egypt by that point--and improved their lives through decent housing.