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Alice Johnny is one of many young people in Vanuatu who have graduated from a construction course run by Oxfam Australia partner Habitat for Humanity. The course teaches students how to build earthquake and cyclone resistant houses using concrete interlocking blocks.
Photo: Andrew Read/OxfamAUS.
Building blocks to the future
Young people in Vanuatu are learning skills that will not only help them find work, but also improve housing standards, as Alice Walter explains.
Young people in Vanuatu face some tough obstacles. With about 75% of the country’s population aged under 25, high unemployment levels and costly school fees are taking their toll — with rising rates of drug use, sexually transmitted diseases, crime and civil unrest.
To help combat this, we are working with local partner organisation Habitat for Humanity Vanuatu on a program which targets unemployed youth, particularly those from remote communities and with low levels of education.
During two months of theory and practical sessions, the participants are taught building, carpentry and furniture-making skills, and are then linked with job opportunities in the local construction industry. Even those graduates that don’t find paid employment finish the course more motivated to find other work or initiate activities in their own communities.
The project has a dual purpose, as Habitat for Humanity Vanuatu Director Viviane Obed explains. “The program is not only about teaching youth vocational skills; it’s also about helping to improve the type of housing that’s being put up in Vanuatu,” she says.
Course participants are taught how to make concrete interlocking blocks (CIB) — a revolutionary technology which is used to construct earthquake and cyclone-resistant buildings at a fraction of the cost of other materials and with a third the cement of regular bricks. This technology is vital in a region which is prone to regular earthquakes and cyclones and where substandard housing is a big issue.
So far, more than 50 of the course’s 450 graduates have found work in the local construction industry — including five women. Many others have used their skills to build homes for their families.
Alice Johnny, aged 20, is one of 50 young women who have graduated from the course since it began in 2004. She proudly stands outside the house in Pango community that she and eight other students built for grandmother Miriam Sus using CIB blocks.
Sitting happily on the stoop of her freshly-painted house, with her six grandchildren playing at her feet, Miriam talks about the ramshackle iron and coconut leaf structure that she and her husband used to live in.
“The old house had mostly dirt and coral as a floor. Sometimes rain is coming through the ceiling and the place is getting wet,” Miriam says. “I am so happy with this new house. I am not worried anymore.”
Looking at the house she helped to build, Alice says, “I feel so excited that I have joined a team to build a house. I am very proud of myself that I can do it.”
It is this sense of pride and increased self-confidence among participants that
has led Habitat for Humanity to extend its training to inmates of the local prison in Port Vila — men who mostly come from Vanuatu’s remote outer islanders. This new program aims to teach inmates carpentry and construction skills which they can use to help them get a job or reintegrate back into their communities upon their release.
Inmate Karl Fau from Nguna island says that since beginning the course in August 2007, he has learnt to build furniture which he will sell to support his wife and six-year-old son. Most importantly, the course has given him a new outlook for the future.
“What we are doing with Habitat develops me more in skills and knowledge so that I think more about the future and feel more positive,” Karl says. “It helps me get out all these negative thoughts in my head.”
Alice Walter is Oxfam Australia’s former Direct Marketing Coordinator.