Housing is a very basic need for comfort and happiness. Unfortunately, Rwenshama is a fishing community with high poverty levels. Many homes are in dilapidated conditions, characterized by disrepair, lack of sanitation, odors, animal excrement, garbage, flooding and insects which cause diseases among people, especially children. Recently the area experienced floods from Lake Edward and River Nchwera, which damaged the walls of a number of huts. Many roofs were also falling apart. Thanks to supporters, BACHO already tried to do some temporary repairs of the roofs by covering the weakest areas with tarps.
To make matters worse, on May 20, 2022, a big storm came through and totally destroyed 10 structures/huts. This left members of these households homeless. In response to this situation, BACHO, with support of Sahaya International, started a program of providing accommodation to those who were affected by floods and storm. A piece of land with several simple homes became available for purchase, and was converted into the Sahaya-BACHO-K home. The community members moved in on June 12, 2022. Thanks to a birthday fundraiser by a Sahaya supporter via Facebook, funds were also raised to provide new simple bedding materials to all people. This was very useful as the earlier floods and storms had also damaged their old bedding materials. Thanks to volunteer students of the Belgian student organization Humasol, a Lorena-rocket stove was constructed to have higher energy efficiency. Currently a simple kitchen structure is being erected around the stove.
The Sahaya BACHO-K home currently houses 31 people. While this covers already the community members most in need, there are also still other families whose huts are falling apart. Accordingly, there are plans to build better homes also for them, depending on when funds become available.
The price for a simple hut costs approximately $2,500. If you are interested to support construction for a hut, please contact us. We will mount a plaque to dedicate the home to you, your family or loved one.
Click on individual pictures to see an enlarged version
The pics below show some of the huts of families in the BACHO program. While some have been destroyed by the storm, some families still live in their hut. Click on individual pics to show an enlarged version.
