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Colombia: She who perseveres succeeds

Mery Lizcano is a hard-working woman in Bogota, Columbia. Eight years ago, on only the salary she earns as she helps to make shoes, she managed to build her house in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Colombia.

Mery is 57 years old and became a single mother at a very young age, as did her daughter several years later. As the family’s primary caretaker, Mery turned to shoe-making for income and rented a living space in the city.

Getting into the Habitat program was not easy. “I began to think, ‘Dear God, I truly do not have the right to a house. How can this be?’”

But the desire to own her own home and leave an inheritance for her daughter and granddaughter fueled her persistence. “In order to enter the program, the lot had to be completely paid for,” she says. “We still needed to pay a million pesos on the balance. My daughter and I worked amazingly hard and did a little bit of everything to come up with the money. But we did it.”

Along with the Lizcano family, there were eight other partner families who had been accepted for the project in this sector. Together, the families received construction training, and — after four months of collaboration, commitment and perseverance — the partner families began to tangibly build their dreams in the shape of four walls and a sturdy roof.

“On the weekends, we would get together and build the houses one by one,” Mery recalls. “It was a very pleasant experience; I thank God and Habitat for giving us the opportunity to help ourselves get to where we are because surely without this opportunity the lot would look empty and the same.”

Mery’s new goal is to finish paying for her house, so that she can continue to build a second floor and thus provide her daughter and granddaughter with a decent roof over their heads, so that renting and fighting for survival will not return as part of this family’s reality.

The most significant gift, even these years later, is the gift of hope. Mery agrees that each and every family has the right to a home, including hers.

By Andrea Paola Mora Salazar, a communications specialist with Habitat Colombia