Construya – safe & sustainable housing in Latin America
"As a socially responsible company, we have an obligation to impart values and actively explore solutions to pressing social problems. “
Christoph Loos, CEO Hilti Group
Improving Latin America's informal construction sector through skills training and knowledge transfer.
“When driving into Lima, you realize how bad the construction is. Everywhere you can see half-finished buildings, originally not meant to go beyond the second floor, piled up to what are now five or six stories,” Johann Baar, Director Affordable Housing and Technology at the Hilti Foundation, recounts from his visit to Peru in February 2022. With little money, people in poor neighborhoods opt for the cheapest solution.
Together with a lack of know-how, this leads to dramatic living situations. Just in Lima, an estimated more than 70 percent of the people (about 7 million) live in informally built houses, that do not even meet basic building standards, exposing the inhabitants to even greater risk during seismic events. “We want to change this,” he states.
Training builders – Construya’s program
In 2011, together with its long-standing partner organization Swisscontact, the Hilti Foundation launched Construya, a qualification program for the informal construction sector in Colombia. Construya has developed training modules, in cooperation with state vocational training institutions, that teach better construction practices for the informal sector.
Retailers and builders get access to this training free of charge. In addition to training, the program strives to raise awareness for better building quality through introductions of technical solutions and sharing of best practices. Construya Colombia successfully concluded last year after 10 years of active engagement and looks back on great achievements: better living conditions for more than 55’000 inhabitants of such constructions, but also for the more than 30’000 trained builders, who earn better income thanks to their higher qualification.
Extending the program
Another Construya project is currently running in Peru. “What works in Colombia will also work in Peru. That was the thinking in 2015 when the project started,” recalls Johann Baar. During his project visit to Lima, he could see, that this was only partly true. Although people face similar challenges such as bad roofing, lacking sanitation, or missing structural integrity of walls, you can’t simply transfer a successful program from one country to another.
“We quickly realized that here the context is different”, explains Johann Baar. “Regulation is different, the economy works differently, and the public agency for training – in Columbia our principal partner – in Peru, has another set-up with different expertise. And the way people make choices is different. They come from another background with different experiences.” While the challenges may be similar, the solution needs to be adapted to local legal and organizational environment, to culture, norms, etc. “However, the idea of our project works just as well here.”
“Construya is a great example of our approach to creating sustainable impact over time. We are establishing a network of public and private organizations for the training of construction workers in informal environments by providing fundamental information and construction practices and thus improving living conditions and empowering people to lead an independent life."
Christoph Loos
Striving for continuous improvement
With this knowledge, the project partners are equally confident that Construya Peru will reach a successful conclusion by the end of the project in 2023.
“At the same time, we are constantly improving our activities to achieve a broader impact. Together with our partner Swisscontact, we are currently working to build bridges and establish public-private partnerships between leading housing organizations in Latin America. We want to change how low-income families build and live at a large scale,” says Johann Baar, summarizing how the Hilti Foundation is working with its partners to drive systemic change in housing.