TECHO recently became a founding member and strategic partner of the Roof Over Our Heads (ROOH) campaign, an initiative that aims to provide resilient housing to people around the world who remain the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Thus, with funding from Bank of America, we have launched a housing-focused initiative: Resilient Housing.
This project is being carried out in response to the growing scale of climate emergencies that hit hardest in contexts of poverty and vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean. This region is the most unequal in the world, where millions of people face a daily lack of adequate housing—without running water, living on dirt floors that flood with every rainfall—and unable to provide a safe home for their children. This year alone, TECHO the urgent needs of families affected by fires in Chile, hurricanes in Mexico, and heavy rains in Argentina.
The project involves changes to the design of solutions and the pilot implementation of housing that is more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as extreme temperatures and flooding. This project is being rolled out in six countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico, and its results will be presented in a book later this year.
Each of these countries adapted the design of the homes to the specific needs of their communities, to make them as resilient as possible to local climate-related disasters. In addition, TECHO efforts extend to other areas: developing and implementing innovative solutions to ensure greater access to water through the installation of rainwater harvesting and purification systems at both the household and community levels.
At TECHO committed not only to rebuilding, but also to reimagining: we seek to build a future where every family can live in a safe and sustainable home that is resilient to the challenges of climate change.
Projects and partnerships like these demonstrate the importance of working together and finding solutions tailored to communities as we move toward building more inclusive and sustainable cities.