When Carter is not mending fences he's building houses

POVERTY

CHIANG MAI : Former US president Jimmy Carter is helping the homeless in the Mekong Region in Thailand, Vietnam, China, Laos and Cambodia.

Former US president Jimmy Carter adds cinder blocks to a wall as he helps to build a home under the Habitat for Humanity project in Chiang Mai yesterday. Mr Carter is leading thousands of volunteers in building homes for the poor along the Mekong River. The volunteers for Habitat for Humanity will build or repair 166 homes in Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam from Nov 15 to 20. AFP

The Carter Work Project works with the international housing charity organisation Habitat for Humanity which launched a campaign yesterday to build 50,000 homes in the Mekong Region over the next five years.

Working in the sweltering heat yesterday, Mr Carter, his wife Rosalynn and about 3,000 volunteers from 25 countries started building homes for 82 Thai families in Ban Nong Kon Kru of San Sai district. Eighty-four more homes will be built in Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Laos. The 166 homes are expected to be built and completed this week.

Mr Carter said the 82 Thai homes are being built in honour of His Majesty the King who celebrates his 82nd birthday next month.

"Twenty-five years ago I had the chance to meet His Majesty the King and I have a lot of admiration for his leadership," Mr Carter said.

The new homeowners are needy Thai and hilltribe villagers. Many are Christians and Muslims but most are Buddhists.

"In an area of the world where many people live in deplorable conditions, we have a chance to help families improve their housing," Mr Carter said.

Habitat for Humanity's chief executive officer Jonathan Reckford said: "This is an area that gets less attention than some other parts of the world".

About one-fifth of the population live in poverty and earn about a dollar a day and half the population lack sanitation, Mr Reckford said.

Chainarong Monthienvichienchai, chairman of Habitat for Humanity Thailand, said that since the organisation was founded in 1998, about 5,000 homes had been built for needy Thais in 23 provinces. The Thai chapter plans to build 5,000 more homes.

Mr Carter, whose Carter Work Project started building homes with Habitat for Humanity in 1985, said the programme helps us "break down the barriers that exist between rich people like us and those in need who have never had a decent home".

"Every year when we have been in a place side by side with Habitat families, we have always benefited more than we contributed," he said. "We have always come out ahead."

Mr Carter said the thousands of volunteers - who pay their own way to each project site - consider it an honour to work with the new homeowners.

The needy beneficiaries do not get the homes free. They are required to contribute by working on the project and pay for the homes over a 10- to 15-year period. The two-bedroom homes being built in Chiang Mai cost about 185,000 baht each.

The new homeowners worked side by side with Mr Carter and the throng of volunteers who included international and Thai celebrities such as Chinese movie star Jet Li, Rattapoom Tokongsup, one of Thailand's best known singers, and former Miss Thailand World Cindy Burbridge Bishop, who is pregnant with her first child.

Since its founding in 1976, Habitat has built and rehabilitated more than 300,000 homes worldwide, providing shelter for 1.5 million people.