Professionals from around the world visit Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust

Our peer exchange to the World Habitat Awards 2015-16 winner Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust took place from 13-16 February 2017 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Participants from organisations in seven countries came together to learn and see for themselves the first Community Land Trust (CLT) in an informal settlement. On the peer exchange participants visited homes, talked to residents, and learnt about the legal and financial structures of the CLT.

The peer exchange has enabled a network of people with expertise to share knowledge, learn from one another and collaborate now and in the future.

Caroline Nagy, Deputy Director for Policy and Research at the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, said, “For me the major learning experience has been thinking about how we can, despite all of our different individual national situations, come together to find really genuine means of community empowerment and community engagement around affordable housing and control of land generally.”

The participants’ organisations and countries were:

Fundación por la Educación Multidimensional (FEM) – Colombia

Hábitat en Movimiento – France

Center for NYC Neighborhoods – USA

Bosque Modelo y Mancomunidad del Chocó Andino-Ecuador – Ecuador

Giroscope – UK

Canopy – UK

East Harlem Preservation – USA

Fundación Vida Urbana – Ecuador

TECHO Panama – Panama

Laboratorio Jurídico sobre Desahucios, Universidad de Córdoba – Spain

Centre for Multidisciplinary Research Kichwa Study (CIMKE) – Ecuador