Habitat for Humanity Tanzania

The Housing Need

Poverty housing is a huge problem in Tanzania. In the villages, the majority of families live in ‘tembe’ or ‘mbavu za mbwa’ houses, basic wooden frames covered with mud. Almost 80% of the population lives in houses with bare earth floors. Leaking roofs leave pools of water inside the house, providing localized breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Houses are almost always overcrowded and require a tremendous amount of maintenance, while entire walls often collapse in the rainy season.

This type of housing exposes families to all kinds of health and safety risks, especially from ticks and insects concealed in unfinished mud walls and earthen floors, vermin and snakes in the thatch, parasites seeking human hosts and malarial mosquitoes entering through unscreened windows and doorways. The majority of families also either shares, or has no access to a latrine, significantly increasing the risk of diseases such as dysentery, diarrhoea, and typhoid fever.

In the towns, low income families are frequently forced to pay high rent for appalling accommodation. Extended families often live in one or two rooms, sharing inadequate ‘facilities’ with ten or more other families.

Habitat for Humanity Tanzania
Habitat for Humanity Tanzania (HFHT) began in Kasulu, in the Kigoma region in 1986 and has grown into a program with 18 active affiliates (local offices) and rising which have served almost 50 different communities across the country.

The national office is based in Dar es Salaam and covers the regions of Dodoma, Ruvuma, Iringa, Morogoro, Shinyanga, Tanga, Mwanza, Kigoma, Tabora and Zanzibar. Construction is mostly in rural areas, with a growing project on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam and peri-urban projects in Dodoma.

HFHT houses consist of two or three rooms and are built with walls of burnt bricks, sand / cement blocks or stabilized soil. Solid foundations are a key feature of design, together with cement floors and windows screened against mosquitoes. The roofs are made of either corrugated iron sheets or cement and sand tiles and rest on wooden trusses painted with used engine oil to prevent insect attack. All homeowners also benefit from a ventilated pit latrine.

Program Highlights
HFHT is currently working towards more innovative house designs and incremental housing options, which will further lower the cost of building or improvements to homeowners, while at the same time maintain high standards. New designs are currently being piloted in Zanzibar and the Coastal region which will reduce house costs considerably.

In another initiative, HFHT has been supporting female-headed households. Widows and single mothers have long been marginalized in society, particularly in terms of property ownership. But by securing their own homes, women in these projects have not only become less vulnerable, but have also felt the empowerment of increased status and influence within the community. As such, women have become beacons of hope for others, transforming families, villages and communities. The Swahili name for the project is ‘Nyumba ni Mama’, which means ‘everything is good with a woman in the house’ or ‘a house without a woman cannot truly be a home’.

Habitat for Humanity Tanzania is also building homes with low-paid primary school teachers in Maji Majtitu, Dar es Salaam, providing a desperately needed resource to help stabilize staffing in local schools and contribute to increased educational achievement and opportunity.

Real Life Story
Hindu Mohamadi has lived in the village of Chaani in northern Zanzibar all her life. Hindu, her four children and ten grandchildren used to live cramped into a small mud-and-stick house, with little protection against rats and scorpions.

Even at the age of 65, Hindu still provides much of the support for her family. She continues to work her small farming plot for food and cash crops and sells poultry and pottery to supplement her income. In the old house Hindu’s family were forced to spend much of their precious time and money repairing their home, especially after the heavy rains which hit the island every year.

Hindu is one of many women who now have their own durable but affordable house as a result of the ‘Nyumba ni Mama’ project run by HFHT. Hindu is clearly excited about the new home, but when asked what she was most looking forward to, her response was surprising: “We will be happy to get the house and start to repay, so that others can start to get these houses too.”

Hindu is closely involved with the running of the Habitat project in her own community and clearly demonstrates a spirit of generosity and selflessness which will easily inspire others to take up the challenge of making a tangible difference in the life of the village.

COUNTRY FACTS
Location: East Africa
Population: 34.2 million
Climate: Varies from tropical along the coast to temperate in the highlands.
Main industries: Agriculture; exports include coffee, cotton, tobacco, tea, sisal.
Government: Republic
Religions: Islam, Christianity, indigenous beliefs
Languages: Kiswahili, English

Affiliates in Tanzania