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Report on Hope into Homes trip to Kyrgystan, 2007

Where is Kyrgyzstan? is the question usually asked when you say that you are going there for two weeks. Then there is further surprise when you indicate that you are going to work with families who are living in impoverished housing and are building their new own homes.

This is exactly what the Interfaith team of twelve people did recently. They left Edinburgh on 22 July and flew to Bishkek, the capital of Kygyzstan. The team had spent many months preparing for their trip in fund raising activities and through that process had already got to know each other very well. The team was both international and interfaith, and what all the members had in common was a connection with Scotland. With Muslims, Christians and people with no specific religious affiliation, from Scotland, England, America, France and Canada they went to Bishkek with two objectives. To work with local families who had had their applications accepted to build their homes with Habitat for Humanity, and to demonstrate that as an Interfaith team you can work together for the elimination of poverty housing.

The team were suppporting Habitat for Humanity, an organisation that enables people on low incomes, and living in impoverished housing, to build their homes and over a period of 15-20 years to pay back the cost of the materials interest free. Each family has to commit 500 hours of their own labour to working on new homes.

The Edinburgh team assisted 20 families working with reeds, mud, wire netting, concrete, and varnish were just some of the materials and the acquired skills that the building involved.

There was an invaluable opportunity to visit the current homes of two of the families the team were building with. Norbick, who works in a brick factory, lives with his wife, two children, and a third one on the way in one room. Food is cooked over an electric ring, the bathroom is down the corridor of what was, during Soviet times a music school. The USD50 that is now paid for the rent of the room will be the repayment on the Habitat loan, and the living space of the new home will include a bathroom, kitchen, living area and sleeping area. Despite the poverty of their surroundings tea and biscuits were offered to the team.

:::: a single mother with three children under the age of three also lives in one room, with an inadequate bathroom for the 60 families down the corridor and an equally non functional kitchen on each floor. She has employment and a sister helps to look after the youngest two children, who are twins, whilst the eldest goes to a nursery. Her brother is giving the 500 hours of time to enable his sister move to a place that is hygienic, safe and has space for them all. There was hardly a dry eye in the team, when she apologised for not being able to offer them tea, as is the tradition of Kyrgyzstan hospitality.

In addition to time on the building site, the team also visited an Orthodox Cathedral, a Buddhist retreat centre, a interfaith park comprising of buildings for most of the major world religions. Everyday following lunch on the building site, there was a time for members to share their thoughts and feelings about the work, and offer reflections from their life journeys.

During the two weeks spent in Kyrgyzstan, as well as building, there were discussions about faith, lots of humour shared, and lives were changed as the team experienced firsthand not just impoverished housing but how it is possible to help people to know that hope can be turned into homes.