Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build Program
June 18, 2007
By Tyisha Manigo
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CHARITY’S MISSION
Women Build is a Habitat for Humanity International program dedicated to encouraging and empowering women to address the problem of inadequate housing by becoming actively involved in building homes in their communities.
Background
Women Build began nationally in 1991 with the construction of the first women-built Habitat home in Charlotte, NC. The program since has spread to other Habitat for Humanity affiliates, including the Chesapeake branch, which introduced its own Women Build program in 1999. Chesapeake Habitat constructs about one Women Build home per year in the Baltimore area. Five Women Build homes have been completed locally. The program took a break last year while it was restructured. The next Chesapeake Women Build project is scheduled to begin this summer.
What does Women Build do?
Women Build does what you would expect it to do from its name, says Marisa Canino, deputy director of Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity: It rebuilds houses with labor provided entirely by women. As much as possible, women volunteers and contractors do behind-the-scenes planning and other technical work. Workers and volunteers gut vacant houses and transform them into two- to three-bedroom rowhomes with all-new features and new heating, plumbing and electrical systems.
“We have sort of a two-fold goal,” Canino says. “We want to provide homeownership opportunities — that’s our primary mission. But at the same time, we know that if we rehab vacant houses that are just standing eyesores on the blocks of otherwise good communities, we can strengthen the whole neighborhood.”
Overall, Chesapeake Habitat oversees the construction of between 13 and 16 houses a year. Women Build is part of that larger effort, allowing women to learn, grow and bond.
“Women Build is one house a year where we focus our efforts on giving women the opportunity to work in construction, teaching them skills and — if they already work in construction — giving them the opportunity to be leaders on the site,” Canino says.
She adds that Women Build attracts two kinds of volunteers: the ones who have “never held a hammer before” and those who have a lot of construction skills but want to interact with women they would otherwise not meet.
“It’s this really supportive and empowering environment where women, whatever their motivation is, can come together and really make an impact, and the end result is that we finish a house,” Canino says. The volunteers work side by side with the Habitat/Women Build homeowners, who range from married couples to multigenerational households to single women with children.
One such homeowner is Ingrid Collazo, who has put in floors and walls and even done some demolition as she works toward completion of the Habitat house in Patterson Park that she and her two children will move into this spring.
“The challenge of the construction site [is that] for some women it can be intimidating. For me it was, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’ I was not intimidated at all,” she says.
Collazo said she wants to continue her involvement with Chesapeake Habitat. “You can’t be a part of Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity and not be moved to help someone else,” she says. “I believe that we are blessed to be a blessing to others, and it’s just such a wonderful thing.”
Recent major achievements/grants/awards
- Chesapeake Habitat recently was awarded $40,000 in seed funding for its Women Build program from Lowe’s, a national partner of Habitat for Humanity International.
- In early 2006, Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity finished construction on its 100th home.
How much did Chesapeake Habitat raise last year?
The organization raised $1.7 million in donations during its last fiscal year (July 2005-June 2006), a 32 percent increase over the previous year. The fund-raising goal for this year is $2.2 million.
The board of directors
Owen Rouse (president)
Stephanie Shack, Esq. (vice president)
Sherrice Davis (secretary)
Joe Noone (treasurer)
Anirban Basu
Amy Bonitz
Michael Brennan
Jaqueline Burley
Jeff Cowan
James Dougherty
Clayton Guyton
John Haas
G. Scott Lang
Michael Massiah
Councilman Keiffer Jackson Mitchell
Martha Morris
Pheadra Nelson
Cynthia Payne
Julie Rogers
Glenn L. Ross
Elvira Smith
Margaret Tindall
Bill Winn.
Volunteer opportunities
Volunteer opportunities on the Women Build construction site are limited. However, other Habitat programs and behind-the-scenes opportunities do exist. For more information,
visit www.chesapeakehfh.org or call 410-366-1250.
