Habitat Para la Humanidad

An Australian friend put me in touch with Rigoberto, the director of the Habitat for Humanity branch in Panama.

We sat down and talked all about the program - a fantastic international foundation that provides housing and financing for people with little means to purchase their own home. What I really like about it is that from the first conversation with the recipient families, the foundation makes it clear that they will have a significant role in building the house and will be making monthly payments to repay the cost of the home, which comes out to about $40 a month here in Panama.

I went on a site visit to Chillibre a few months ago, just about an hour or so outside of the capital. This tiny town of 1500 Panamanians doesn’t have much economic opportunity. Most have limited skills and no full time employment, and it's evident by the conditions in which they live.

Most of their houses are made of tin and wood. Some even had walls made of plastic tarp. The tin roofs are often held on by rocks that roll around in the heavy winds. In fact, one roof came completely off during our visit.

Habitat for Humanity finds good families who are deserving and in need of housing assistance. They provide the financing, materials and construction for the houses. The families work to help build their homes – in turn, providing a stronger feeling of ownership.

We visited some families who recently moved into their new homes. Check out these kids - they couldn’t be happier.

The foundation is run by a handful of devoted employees. Because of the limited man power, they rely on many volunteers to lend a helping hand. That’s where I come in.

We talked about the program and its needs - both immediate and long term. It turns out, there's not much difference between the two.

Rigoberto explained that he knows how to make houses and find the workers, but has no idea to get the good word out about the program, and since it relies on financial help from the whole community, it's imperative that people know about the good work that's being done.

Since I have some great public relations experience under my belt, I agreed to put together a strategic communications plan that I presented last week. Rigoberto loved it and passed it on to his boss, who invited me to present it to the universities with them.

We met with U Latina last week, who agreed to be an integral part in the PR and marketing using much of my communications plan as the backbone of the campaign. I'm pretty excited to be along for the ride from the very beginning - but honored to know that I'm playing such a big role.


Here's a pic of Rigoberto getting a copy of the communications plan.