Build a home hand-in-hand with a Portuguese family.

Join this one week challenge and you will work alongside a Portuguese family to help repair or build a new home. A typical home has two to three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom and is between 66 -108 square metres. You will have the chance to spend a day in Porto before you depart.

About Portugal
Portugal joined the European Community, now the EU, alongside Spain in 1986 and was in the group of the first 11 countries to adopt the euro in 1999. Economic growth had been above the EU average for much of the 1990s, but retreated in 2001-07. A poor educational system, in particular, has been an obstacle to greater productivity and growth. Portugal has been increasingly overshadowed by lower-cost producers in Central Europe and Asia as a target for foreign direct investment.

Why build in Portugal?

Housing is a major concern of Portuguese families in need, with 65 % of them living in dilapidated housing and 8½% living in shacks. In 1996 a group of concerned volunteers set up the first Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Portugal in the northern city of Braga. To date 22 houses have been built or renovated. Habitat homes are designed to be sympathetic to local building techniques and are made of traditional Portuguese materials: bricks, red roof tiles, green shutters on the windows, and ceramic tiles inside the houses.

Your Fundraising Challenge
Built into the cost of the Challenge is a donation which we will send to the host country. This usually amounts to £350 - vital funds to ensure that we can continue our building programme. Many volunteers double or even treble their donation - the more you can raise, the more homes we can build. Give this gift yourself, or fundraise from your friends, family and colleagues. We will provide a Fundraising Toolbox packed with ideas to help you raise as much money as you can.