Build Change

Direct beneficiaries per year: 1,400 homeowners, 2,200 engineers, 900 builders, and tracked the construction of 1,300 safer houses

Geographic areas served: more than 30 countries

Programs: Haiti: five years after the earthquake in haiti. . . We've made 137,000 people saferthe start of 2015 will mark the five year anniversary of the january 12, 2010 earthquake that struck haiti. Build change is fundamentally changing the way homes are built, through local training, public education, and collaboration with the government to implement nationwide training in disaster-resistant housing design and construction. In haiti, build change is synonymous with retrofitting. (continued on page 38)(haiti program description continued from page 2)since 2010: - build change's team has trained 8,075 local people, who have made 27,415 buildings safer, protecting 138,580 people in haiti. - 6,150 jobs created. - eighty-three small businesses trained to make concrete blocks stronger and safer for use in construction. These businesses produce hundreds of thousands of safer concrete blocks each month, increasing the safety of thousands of homes. - tens of thousands of posters and booklets distributed, and hundreds of community presentations informing the public about the risk of future earthquakes and how to build safe houses. - haiti's government now requires that ngos collaborate with homeowners for reconstruction, rather than building large blocks of identical housing without community input. - haiti's ministry of public works requested a guide for making damaged houses safe and strong enough to withstand a future earthquake. Build change helped produce a guide and it is in use nationwide. Build change will continue to empower haitians to make their communities safe from future natural disasters. In 2015, build change plans to get thousands more people into safer houses and hundreds of children into safe schools. Reconstruction and retrofitting:build change is proud to partner with global communities on the american red cross lamika project in campeche, port-au-prince. Build change trained 504 builders and engineers in disaster-resistant construction and retrofitting. Thirteen homeowners received technical assistance during the retrofitting of their homes. Many of these houses include rental units; in total, 24 families are living in these safer buildings. In addition, 11 families in 7 houses are benefitting from new retaining walls built in this hillside community. This project will make a total of 500 families safer by the end of 2015. In partnership with entrepreneurs du monde and the french red cross, build change trained 59 builders and provided technical assistance to 13 homeowners in christ-roi and delmas 9. In 2015, build change will provide technical assistance to an additional 45 families in christ-roi. Better blocks = safer houses:strong concrete blocks help ensure that buildings will withstand the next natural disaster. In partnership with hilti foundation, build change trained 521 employees at 58 local small- and medium-sized blockmaking businesses to improve the quality of their concrete blocks and to create demand in the local market. Eighteen of these businesses' blocks now meet or exceed the strength needed for safe construction. These businesses saw an increase in demand and income due to the increased quality. Network of certified construction professionals:in 2014, build change launched rezo, an affiliation of private sector businesses and construction professionals dedicated to the promotion of products and services meeting the requirements of the national construction code of haiti. Rezo partners with experts in training, marketing, and product development to support the business needs of its affiliates through job placement, marketing services, financial products, and technical assistance. Through these incentives, rezo affiliates commit to maintaining high trade standards. Rezo has partnered with 6 institutions, providing special products and services to 28 affiliates, blockmaking enterprises, and builders. Rezo plans to reach more than 100 affiliates in 2015. Safer schools:build change performed structural evaluations of 12 schools in the marchand-dessalines region for save the children international. Build change provided a report summarizing the findings from the evaluations and analyses, as well as strengthening recommendations for 9 of the 12 schools, impacting the safety of over 1,000 students. New construction concepts for the other three will be prepared in 2015. Build change will increase involvement in school evaluation, design, and retrofitting in haiti. Training centers:build change opened one hands-on training center for fee-based clients, and two subsidized for specific projects. Build change will open two hands-on training centers to train fee-based clients in 2015, reaching 280 builders. Vocational training:at the request of centre d'etude et de coopration internationale (ceci), build change provided 20 vocational students with training in disaster-resistant construction practices, providing them with the technical skills needed to enter the workforce and improve their livelihoods. Build change will train 55 more students in 2015. Access to financing:in 2013 and 2014, build change piloted a product that combined housing finance and technical assistance with sogesol, the microfinance subsidiary of sogebank. Through the sogesol kredi bel kay program, 55 homeowners accessed $35,286 in capital for building, expanding, or retrofitting their homes, with build change engineers providing technical assistance.

indonesia: ten years after the tsunami 89,000. . . Safer people and millions of better bricks. Ten years have passed since the december 26, 2004 indian ocean tsunami devastated coastal areas throughout the region. Build change began operations in indonesia a few months later. Since 2004, build change has supported safe housing reconstruction, vocational training, and better building materials in four provinces after the tsunami and three subsequent earthquakes, training 14,000 people who have made 89,000 people safe. (continued on page 41)(indonesia program description continued from page 2)in the last 10 years, build change has: - worked in aceh, west java, bengkulu, and west sumatra provinces, responding to communities rebuilding after multiple earthquakes. - trained 14,360 people in safe construction, who have gone on to build 17,800 safer houses that protect over 89,000 people. - created 3,500 jobs - written and distributed tens of thousands of copies of simple construction booklets, posters and pamphlets, all aimed at education about safer construction. - trained more than 240 small businesses that make bricks to produce safer, stronger bricks in aceh and padang. Build change focuses on empowering women-owned businesses. Most recently, build change has partnered with usaid to help improve the safety of over 3,000 homes rebuilt after the 2013 earthquake, and to reach over 29,000 people in aceh about safer construction. Earthquake in aceh:in july 2013, a 6. 1-magnitude earthquake struck aceh, damaging 16,000 houses and displacing over 22,000 people. Build change opened an office to provide local technical assistance in september 2013 and will work in the region until 2015. A more resilient building system:build change, with support of the usaid office of foreign disaster assistance, is providing technical assistance to 3,000 families rebuilding their homes in aceh, in a program ending in 2015. Through local education and outreach, build change has motivated many homeowners to build houses comprised of a masonry skirt (which protects the bottom third of the wall from mold, mildew, rainwater, and so on) with a timber frame. This house design is common in indonesia. It is also more affordable and typically more earthquake resistant than a full masonry house in this region. Build change reached over 29,000 people in aceh with education about rebuilding with timber and following basic rules for safe construction, through posters, community events, radio interviews and advertisements, and text messages. From paper records to tablets:build change adopted a tablet-based electronic data gathering and management system to support its technical assistance program for housing reconstruction in aceh in partnership with the grameen foundation. Rather than collecting data about the reconstruction of 3,000 houses on paper, build change staff now conducts surveys, collect data on rebuilding progress, take pictures, and upload that information for easy access using inexpensive, portable tablet computers. This approach is more efficient and has increased productivity and data quality, as well as maximizing the amount of time staff are in the field providing technical assistance to families. Data for over 3,000 homes in aceh is easily accessible through salesforce and taroworks, expanding opportunities to share data with partners and to analyze data to continue to improve. Given the success of this pilot program, build change is implementing tablet-based data gathering throughout its programs. Better bricks = safer homes:in 2014, with support from sampoerna, build change trained 123 women brickmakers to make stronger bricks and apply new business skills to lower their production costs and increase their profits. These businesses have produced over 100,000 better bricks. Build change is working in partnership with these local small businesses to experiment with alternative fuel sources to increase heat of firing, reduce the use of timber, and reduce harmful emissions. Build change focuses on brickmaking businesses owned by women to increase their economic opportunities. Looking forward:in 2015, build change will expand its brickmaker training program to another area of aceh and to padang.

philippines: building partnerships with the government2014 was dedicated to building relationships in the philippines, with the dual objective of supporting the response to the 2013 typhoon haiyan and the bohol earthquake, and supporting the philippine government, private sector, and civil society organizations to strengthen the country's resilience to natural disasters. (continued on page 44)(philipines program description continued from page 2)in anticipation of scaling impacts in 2015 and beyond, build change developed and tested locally appropriate technical resources for rebuilding and retrofitting safe houses. Reconstruction after typhoon haiyan:build change first piloted its technical resources in sulangan, eastern samar with partner cordaid. Build change tested out three masonry housing types - confined masonry, reinforced shear wall and moment frame - training homeowners and builders to manage the construction themselves. By the end of the year, more than 20 people were trained and two of the three pilot houses were completed. Build change also piloted a timber retrofit program, training nine carpenters as retrofit technicians and testing the retrofit techniques on four houses. Better building materials are an essential element of safer houses. Ten people at three local-area block manufacturers were trained to produce stronger concrete blocks. Build change agreed to scale the project with cordaid, so more permanent houses will be built in 2015. Spreading knowledge:in early 2014, the bohol shelter cluster distributed over 6,000 posters explaining basic principles of safe construction to people whose houses were affected by the 2013 earthquake. In addition, at the request of the department of social welfare and development, build change built upon these posters, the findings from its "learning first" activities, as well as the standards set out in the national structural code of the philippines, and developed a 75-page set of comprehensive, illustrated design and construction guidelines for residential houses. The guidelines are being used by government partners and other organizations implementing housing construction programs. Partnering with the government:the philippines sees four to six typhoons make landfall every year and experiences strong earthquakes regularly. As such, build change is partnering with several government agencies to assist their disaster response activities and strengthen their disaster risk reduction efforts. Build change signed memorandums of agreement with the social housing finance corporation (shfc) and technical education and skills development authority (tesda) to jointly advance disaster response and safe construction efforts. Build change has also provided support to the department of social welfare and development, department of education, office of the presidential assistance for rehabilitation and recovery, and housing and urban development coordinating council, and will continue to do so in the coming year.

latin america: colombia & guatemala - preventing a disastercolombiaunsafe buildings:over 10 million colombians live in houses that are weak and likely to collapse in earthquakes or major storms. These homes are built by low-income families in tightly-packed urban neighborhoods, without engineering design or construction supervision by municipal authorities. When a moderate earthquake struck haiti in 2010, tens of thousands of unsafe houses in similar informal urban neighborhoods collapsed, killing 230,000 people. Reducing risk saves lives:to prevent such a catastrophic loss of life from a natural disaster in colombia, build change is partnering with local and national government to protect families by providing training in designing and implementing retrofits of unsafe houses. Public-private partnership:a public-private partnership is essential for retrofitting to occur on a large scale. The bogota city government has subsidies available to low-income homeowners for structural retrofits. These subsidies can be accessed by families to cover the costs of materials and labor for retrofitting. Subsidies can be used to provide an incentive for families to follow safe building standards. The private sector must provide the engineering and construction skills necessary to implement the programs. Build change provides the training and technical assistance needed to build the capacity of all parties and encourage compliance with building standards. Retrofitting procedure:in 2014, build change developed a straightforward retrofit evaluation and implementation procedure in partnership with servicio nacional de aprendizaje (sena), swisscontact, and the seismic engineering community in bogota. Build change developed training curricula for builders and engineers, covering how to evaluate one- to three-story masonry houses and how to design and carry out a retrofit when necessary. Build change trained 8 sena instructors, staff from caja de vivienda popular, and other builders and engineers using these resources. One house in bogota was retrofitted through the training program as proof of concept, making it earthquake-resistant within the subsidy of $5,000. Looking forward:in 2015, build change will work with local stakeholders and homeowners to retrofit 50 houses in bogota through the government subsidy program, as a next step toward working with thousands of families to retrofit their homes. Guatemala:reducing risk saves lives:build change began working in guatemala in 2014, with the goal of saving lives by making buildings safe before a natural disaster strikes. Unsafe school buildings: millions of guatemalan children go to class in school buildings that are likely to collapse in earthquakes or major storms. When a school does collapse, local education is thrown into chaos. Sometimes classes are held in ad-hoc community centers, tents, or even in damaged and unsafe buildings. Students often lack access to consistent education until the building is rebuilt. By ensuring that school buildings withstand natural disasters, children will survive and their education will remain uninterrupted. Protecting students:more than 200 schools were damaged in the earthquake that struck guatemala in 2012 and need to be retrofitted to make them safe to use. Hundreds of other schools throughout the country are weak and may collapse in future earthquakes. These schools also need to be retrofit to protect students. The guatemalan government is aware of the need to retrofit schools. Build change will launch a school retrofitting partnership in guatemala in 2015. Promoting retrofitting:in 2014, build change partnered with pci's barrio mio guatemala, a neighborhood improvement program to reduce the vulnerability of mixco to landslides, erosion, flooding, earthquakes, and hurricanes. Build change implemented a subsidy-based housing retrofitting program to retrofit 3 homes in mixco as a demonstration of the process and a local training opportunity. Looking forward: in 2015, build change will develop a general retrofitting procedure for low-rise masonry houses with the guatemalan engineering community and begin training local builders and engineers.