A Roof For My Country (“Un Techo Para Mi País”) is an institution headed by young students who have volunteered since 1997 to construct emergency housing and provide microcredits to enable work in basic occupations. They seek to benefit society and improve life for the poorest in Latin America, by cooperative work between volunteers, businesses and the media.

History

"A Roof for my Country" was based upon Un Techo para Chile (A Roof for Chile), one of the most successful projects of volunteer social labour in Chile which started as a summer project for students and, by 2004, had over 18,000 volunteers each year who had built over 26,000 dwellings. In Chile, they also developed initiatives for microcredits, education, health and law. It was founded by Jesuit priest, Felipe Berríos, who said:

The national recognition achieved by Un Techo para Chile, and the need of the thousands of South American families who lack a proper home, served as motivation to create Un Techo Para mi País (A Roof for my Country), with the goal of spreading the successful Chilean volunteer model to other nations in Latin America.

ARFMC (UTPMP)'s first international excursion occurred after the July 2001 Salvadoran earthquake. That year, young volunteers belonging to ARCH (UTPCH) decided to help those stranded by the quake. This led to ARFMC (UTPMP)'s first campaign in the Salvadoran locality of Cojutepeque in which 120 volunteers built 77 houses.

After the success of international building effors in 2001 and 2002 and the strengthening of the El Salvador teams, the first simultaneous international building of ARFMC (UTPMP) was organized. Foreign volunteers visited Chile in January 2003 with the purpose of attending the summer university constructions of ARCH (UTPCH) and learning the way that the organization's work was carried out in Chile.

During Easter week of 2003, the first simultaneous constructions were organized by ARFMC (UTPMP) in two countries of Latin America. The projects of Argentina and Colombia were born, and in that week a total of 51 houses were built.

With three local teams in Latin America, the first gathering of volunteers of ARFMC (UTPMP) could be held in August 2003 in Chile to assist the teams that had constructed their first buildings along with a prospective team that would expand into Uruguay. More than 120 youths from all over Latin America, along with 100 volunteers from ARCH (UTPCH), built 60 houses in the city of Valparaiso. In December 2003 A Roof for Uruguay was born, with the project starting its first buildings in the district of Peñarol.

After one year and three months of work and presentations of the project to BID, in August 2005, A Roof for my Country received $3.5 million from FOMIN (Multilateral Investment Funds) for social intervention in the Latin American countries it serves.

Communicational Campaigns

During 2005 the first communication campaigns were carried out by the local teams of Argentina, Uruguay, El Salvador and Colombia. Two campaigns were developed in Uruguay (July and December), two campaigns in El Salvador (July and December), one campaign in Colombia (December) and one in Córdoba, Argentina in December.

New Challenges

Thanks to the promotional campaigns' success and the efforts of more than 100,000 Latin American youth volunteers, the organization has built more than 26,000 houses. The group seeks to consolidate the local projects of Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru and El Salvador that have already started and is in the process of implementing the project in Mexico and other nations.

Vision

“A Latin America without extreme poverty, where no family lacks a minimum household and where they all get the chances to improve their quality of life.”

Mission

"To be the utmost Latin American institution of youngsters with the objective and common dream of working with the families in extreme poverty situation in our continent, achieving to improve their quality of life by the conjunct work in constructing emergency households and complemented with social intervention programs for the benefited families. Denounce the reality of the marginal settlements where millions of families around every country in Latin America live, and involve each person and the whole society, making them compromise and be supportive with the duty of building a more solidary continent and without the poverty injustice."

Figures ARFMC (UTPMP) 2005

ARFMC (UTPMP) has managed to develop work projects in seven countries of Latin America. In each of these the project began with the building of emergency housing.

Up to April 2006, the project had built 2500 houses in Latin America, not including those built in Chile.

Projections

A roof for my country has built more than 25 thousand emergency households in different countries around Latin América, like Argentina, El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Uruguay and expects to reach de 30 thousand by the end of 2006. Besides construction, we are in the process of establishing en each of these countries social intervention plans, whit the objective of developing abilities and competence in people and communities that live in these encampments, taking advantage of the opportunities that the Government, the market and society offer to overcome the poverty condition in an autonomous way. Un Techo para mi País was born by and for the fought against poverty in a continent where more than 220 million people live in unworthy conditions, to let this situation be known and integrate the whole society in the job of overcoming it.

External links

• Un Techo Para Mi País
• Un Techo Para Chile
• Un Techo Para Mi País - Argentina
• Un Techo Para Mi País - Colombia
• Un Techo Para Mi País - El Salvador
• Un Techo Para Mi País - Uruguay