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Haiti Quake Relief Charity "Build-a-House Workshop"
On April 3rd and 4th, we built a "house" at the center of Tokyo, at an event called "2010 SPRING LOVE -Harukaze-(*)" held at the Yoyogi Koen Park, Shibuya.
The charity workshop for the earthquake victims in Haiti was made possible by collaboration with the Natural House Project, a Kunitachi (Tokyo) based group who builds houses with local and natural materials.
Involving kids to adults, the participants experienced "house building" through making earthy blocks and laying blocks - wooden ones to model the real bricks. "It's fun to build a house," many of them shared with the booth staff.
At Habitat Japan's booth, we exhibited photos and reports from Haiti, CG movies of Habitat's core house designs, house repairing kits and materials for future house building. Viewing these reality helped many people to feel this workshop as a "real construction site" where they can learn the importance of house and contribute to the activities in a far away country like Haiti.
[Top] Making earthy blocks [Middle] Laying the wooden blocks [Bottom] Making a donation
A student booth volunteer (CC&CClub member) said, "I was surprised to see how many people wants to do something for Haiti even if they aren't usually engaged in volunteerism." It seems that it even helped the booth staff recognize the significance of their own involvement in the aid work.
This workshop was driven by an initiative to call for support for Haiti through the construction of a model house and leaning the importance of having a house. Under cherry blossoms in full bloom, each block contained hopes for warm houses, families and future for the people of Haiti.
A total of 115,605 yen raised during the two days will be used to aid the victims in Haiti. Thank you very much for your contribution.
About Habitat's response to Haiti Earthquake, click HERE.
* What's "SPRING LOVE" ?
This event is a free festival to promote the importance of peace through familiar cultures like music and art, with participation of various artists and associations, held every year in early April when the cherry blossom is full-blown in Tokyo. It attracted twenty thousands this year.
