Masiphumelele Building


	Our building program is driven by two major considerations:


	Fire!


	A paraffin lamp kicked over, an open fire outside in the wind, suddenly the tinder-dry wooden shack is an inferno and everything you own is gone. No clothes, no identity, no way to recover.


	Replace the shack with a concrete block house, plastered and painted, which keeps out the winter rain and also has inside plumbing and electricity; life now is much better - hope for a better future replaces the despair of poverty.

	Community

	The government provides a school - but where do the pre-schoolers go, where do the school students go after school, where do the older youth go to get off the streets?




		The day care center we built in 2001




		The youth center we built in 2002




		The library and park we built in 2005