In 2008, I joined Techo, which is a youth-led NGO that fights social injustices and poverty by building housing in informal settlements in several countries in Latin America. Most volunteers were undergrad students who took time during the weekend or holidays to go to marginal urban and rural communities. I heard about the NGO through a friend from college and signed up to go to a community to help build a couple of houses. I don't think I knew how to use a shovel properly or a hammer. But I learned, and along with my group, we built the house. It was hard manual work, but now that I look back, I remember the time with the families and the children. I remember having a good time with my new volunteer friends. 

After a few constructions, I became part of the “detection team” for the Caribbean zone in Costa Rica. Our objective was to find new communities that needed a better living situation. We would knock on doors, asking for community leaders, as they were the ones who truly knew the people. They would take us to meet families that needed the most help. We were welcomed into their homes; we drank a lot of sweet coffee and heard their life stories. After a first visit, we would come back with a larger team of volunteers to do surveys in each family. Later, we would go through the surveys and rank the most urgent cases. It was a difficult choice: we had 20 houses for the first construction, and 35 families that needed help. I was around 25, and my team and I had long discussions on whether the single mom with three kids needed more the house than the elderly couple that did not have a pension. 

During the construction, we got close to the families. Most of the time they were there helping and/or cooking lunch. We would all sit together and share a meal. Two realities came together. Us, privileged volunteers pursuing a college degree, and them, vulnerable families that worked in construction, banana or pineapple plantations.  Working alongside those families and hearing how they had to leave their homes and few possessions because the water was rising during extreme rainfalls, gave me the first push to do something about it.

At the time we thought we were doing barely enough for those families, but years later, many of those volunteers held positions in government in charge of housing and informal settlements. The real impact was us, becoming better professionals to further help marginalized families. 

If you would like to know more about Techo and the work they do in Latin America you can visit their webpage HERE