Feel Good Friday - Build Change

Like many of my Feel Good Friday subjects over the last year, I learned about today's organization from a conversation at work and I want to pass it on!

"Build Change trains homeowners, local builders, engineers and government officials to construct or retrofit disaster-resistant buildings in areas vulnerable to earthquakes and typhoons."

Founded in 2004 by Dr. Elizabeth Hausler, the mission of Build Change is "to greatly reduce deaths, injuries and economic losses caused by housing and school collapses due to earthquakes and typhoons in emerging nations." Locations with current projects include Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines.

An important aspect of the work being done is that the reconstruction and retrofitting process is driven by homeowners. Build Change involves homeowners in the design of their new homes, trains them how to purchase high quality building materials and provides technical assistance to homeowners so they can oversee construction of their homes. You can watch this 5 minute video for details or keep on reading.

Build Change has a six-step approach to safe homes:

1. Learn first - forensic engineering studies to determine why specific buildings collapse
2. Research and design for earthquake-resistant houses - those that are culturally appropriate and preferred by homeowners, as well as low cost and locally sustainable
3. Build local capacity - training local masons, carpenters, engineers and homeowners, including programs to train women to become builders
4. Stimulate local demand - making new homes affordable and easy to implement and creating simple building codes and inspection systems for governments to enforce
5. Facilitate access to capital - supplementing grants and financing from relief agencies
6. Measure change - documenting changes made on the houses and testing skill development of people trained

In the last 14 years, they have enhanced the safety of over 250,000 people and 50,000 buildings, trained more than 27,000 people in safe construction techniques and created over 12,000 jobs. If you'd like to put a face to a number, you can read success stories of the people who were directly impacted here.

Now that you know the effect Build Change has, you can support their work by volunteering your time, donating your money and/or becoming a social media fan by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @BuildChange.

Feel Good Friday - Women For Human Rights, Single Women Group - Nepal

It's been almost a week since the devastating 7.8 earthquake in Nepal. The death toll has risen to over 5,000 and an estimated 2.8 million Nepalese are displaced from their homes.

It's difficult to find a reason to feel good under these circumstances and yet, there's always hope. Today's Feel Good Friday is focused on Women for Human Rights, Single Women Group. Since last Saturday they have been mobilizing volunteers to distribute food in different areas of Nepal. While there is more need than this group can possible address, they are doing what they can and updating social media with calls to action tagged as #HelpInAnyWayPossible.

And what do they do when they are not providing earthquake relief? Provide support to widows in the country, both young and old. They refer to the widows as "single women" because the term widow has such a negative connotation in Nepal.

According to their website, "Discrimination against women in Nepal is prevalent, due to the structure of the society deeply rooted in Patriarchal thoughts. Women are constantly marginalized and single women (widows) are in a (sic) even worse state. Single woman are considered as symbols of ill-omen and the cause of the death of their husbands." You can hear more about this by watching this 5:49 minute video.

Their mission is a simple one, "To empower women economically, politically, socially and culturally in order to live dignified lives and enjoy the value of human rights."

To accomplish this they divide their areas of focus into five pillars, which you can read about in detail here. Briefly, they are as follows:

1. Create awareness of victims of cultural torture and provide a scholarship fund and school supplies for children of these single women.
2. Train women in the development of different kinds of income generating activities, provide micro loans and education on effective ways of saving money.
3. An advocacy campaign for the human rights of women as well as counseling and skills development to help conflict affected women recover from traumatic experiences and reintegrate back into society.
4. Improvement of single women groups to articulate demands to improve their situations by securing rights from their local bodies of government.
5. Building networks at the South Asian regional and global levels to increase awareness of the rights of single women.

Since the creation of WHR in 1994 they've changed laws ranging from increased property rights for single women to being able to get a passport without a male relative's approval. They now have a membership base of over 100,000 women in 73 districts!

To follow their progress on earthquake recovery and their work with single women, like their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter @WHRNepal.