Faith in the future – building homes in the Philippines

Roger lives in Baseco, Metro Manila, in the Philippines. Today Baseco is a community of more than 47,000 families occupying 52 hectares of land that was reclaimed from the Manila Bay. People live in shantytowns and slums full of dirt, garbage and mud. However, as Roger recalls, just a few years ago Baseco was a former shipyard site full of mangroves and teeming with fish, shrimps and crabs. "Until the early 1980s this was all water and mangroves. Ships would dock here and we would barter a pack of cigarettes for fish or shrimps", Roger explains.

In the 1980s large numbers of rural Filipinos began to move to places like Metro Manila in search of job opportunities and a better life. However, the large numbers of people now living in makeshift housing, often without water or sanitation facilities, is testament to the fact that these hopes were never realised. A shortage of affordable land and a fast-growing population meant the Philippines government could not effectively tackle the growing problem of homelessness and poverty housing.

Josefina 'Josie' remembers what life was like when she and her family first arrived in Baseco – "It was really difficult to live here . but we bore the suffering because there was no other place we could go. We tried to make do with what little we earned, but through it all we never lost hope." People like Josie suffered even more when a massive fire swept through the area in 2004, claiming lives and burning down shacks and belongings. The little the people of Baseco had was gone in an instant.

Josie's faith in the future however, eventually paid off. After the fire, Habitat for Humanity Philippines, the government and hundreds of individual and corporate volunteers began a programme of rebuilding in the shantytown. In total 999 other homeowners – including Roger Balicoco – were able to benefit from this building work and become the proud owners of a new Habitat home.

The new homes are not a hand-out however; the families who benefited pay a small monthly fee to cover some of the costs of the building as Roger explains: "Depending on your ability to pay, you can pay 300 pesos (around £3.20) a month for ten years, or 560 pesos (around £6) per month for five years. This was all explained to us at the beginning of the house-building project. However, Habitat has a heart and understands the plight of those who can't always pay on time."

Find out more about Habitat for Humanity's work in The Philippines