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The Salvadoran Foundation for Development and Minimum Housing (Fundación Salvadoreña de Desarrollo y Vivienda Minima – FUNDASAL), a non-profit founded in 1968, has won a Bronze World Habitat Award, in partnership with UN Habitat, for a rural housing and habitat project. Only one other organisation (TECHO) has been recognised so often by the prestigious global awards in their 40 year history. In addition to this year’s medal, FUNDASAL also won a gold award in 2004 and commendations in 1999, 2014 and 2017.
The winning strategy
FUNDASAL’s proven strategy is based on ‘organised self-production’ – where residents are supported to deliver housing projects – as well as partnerships with local organisations, targeted training for women and young people, and improving living conditions for the long term.
Many Salvadorans live in make-shift, self-built homes that are highly susceptible to earthquakes, floods, and disease. In the absence of government programmes and funding to tackle these long-term problems, FUNDASAL’s projects offer hope and a vital opportunity to thousands of Salvadorans facing poverty, inadequate housing, climate vulnerability, and food and water insecurity.
Hand in hand with residents, FUNDASAL has built or upgraded over 640 homes and community centres, and brought dry toilets, low-carbon cooking stoves, and rainwater harvesting systems into use. Organic vegetable gardens have been established to promote food security, and residents receive training in construction, agriculture, and disaster-risk management.
Living conditions and access to food have vastly improved for the 50,484 people who live in the four rural municipalities where the project was carried out.
David Ireland, CEO of World Habitat, said: “We are thrilled to recognise FUNDASAL’s outstanding work once again. Their innovative approach to housing and community development is amongst best practice in the region and shows how, with the right support and funding, communities can lead their own journey out of poverty.”
Claudia Blanco, Executive Director of FUNDASAL said: “FUNDASAL is delighted to receive a Bronze Award from World Habitat and UN Habitat. The award is a seal of approval for work that guarantees the human right to housing and habitat, recognising that, even in the most impoverished areas, there is infinite wealth: in skills, ancestral knowledge, local materials and construction. We see this as socio-political support, at a time when aggressiveness towards the environment for the sake of economic development, places the survival of all humanity at serious risk.”
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