Journey to the West: Habitat For Humanity's Will

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GUANGZHOU 005798

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV EAGR SOCI PHUM CH
SUBJECT: Journey to the West: Habitat For Humanity's Will
to Do Good in Guangxi

Ref: A) Guangzhou 5778 and previous, B) Guangzhou 4043

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1. (SBU) Summary: Consulate Guangzhou is assisting Habitat
for Humanity's Guangxi branch to continue its projects
there through a partnership with Guangxi University's
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture which can
provide legal cover for Habitat since it cannot register as
a non-governmental organization (NGO) under Chinese law.
Habitat's proposal is currently under consideration by the
University's administration. Habitat does excellent work
in Guangxi, as the Consulate witnessed in visiting one
project in Wuzhou City in a village that suffered damage
during the June 2005 floods (ref B) and a second one
further south in Fusui benefiting 10 leprosy patients
living in an impoverished, isolated rural area. End
Summary.

It Isn't Easy Doing Good
--------------

2. (SBU) Habitat for Humanity (HFH) wants to and is doing
good in Guangxi, despite some difficulties and setbacks. A
look at two of their projects by Congenoffs justifies this
conclusion. The Habitat project in Wuzhou had been in the
planning phase since the June 2005 floods but ran into
funding difficulties. The project was originally supposed
to be funded by a Hong Kong business and was to build
hundreds of homes. Unfortunately, the Hong Kong business
pulled out at the last minute, preferring instead to donate
its funds to Guangdong Province where it has business
operations. In the end, Habitat's International office
came through with a loan program that would build eleven
homes. The loan is a five-year loan with a 2% per year
inflation adjustment. The eleven homes are going to eleven
families. The families benefiting from the project in
these villages build the homes themselves. Although
several volunteer teams were scheduled to assist with the
build, many dropped out because of the fear of bird flu.
Each home is approximately 80 square meters with four or
five rooms and is consistent with housing in the
countryside. The owners have designed the buildings
themselves, often including the future possibility to build
an addition on the flat roof. Despite several financial
setbacks, the project was completed in time for the
families to move into their new homes in a semi-finished
state before the Chinese New Year.

Assistance to Leprosy Patients
--------------

3. (U) En route to southern Guangxi, we visited a second
Habitat for Humanity (HFH) site, located at a ten-person
leprosy rehabilitation site in Fusui County. The leprosy
housing site is located thirty-five minutes off the main
highway, on a bumpy dirt road that passes through one town
and several villages of varying degrees of development.
Local officials pointed out that Fusui is one of the more
agriculturally developed areas in the prefecture, but we
noted a very low proportion of motorized vehicles, many ox-
drawn carts, and manual labor that in other underdeveloped
areas would have been done by machine, thus demonstrating
the poor and backward nature of this area of Guangxi. Many
agricultural carts were being pulled by hand.


4. (U) Before the leprosy housing site was created in the
1950's, these 10 leprosy patients, all of whom are now
elderly, were forced to live in simple cave homes they had
dug in nearby hills. The government then built a
leprosarium, but this building has since fallen into ruin.
Government funding for the site withered over the years and
rehabilitation is nonexistent, but local officials revived
financial and official administrative support for the
people living there once HFH showed an interest in the
site, though local farmers living in the area have not been
supportive. Most HFH projects are funded through
homeowners' incomes and are built by the homeowners
themselves, but because virtually all of these leprosy
patients have lost limbs, and all have only limited use of
their hands, UK-based Leprosy Mission International is
providing the majority of the funding for the project. The

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project includes ten homes as well as an additional
building that will act as an examination center and
activity center. The housing is very simple and consistent
with housing in the area, its small size reflecting the
poverty in the area. Each house consists of a single-story
structure consisting of a flat roof with two rooms, one a
combined sleeping and living room and the other a kitchen.
During the visit, student and faculty volunteers from
Shekou International School were on-site. They completed a
perimeter wall and leveled the uneven ground. Contractors
have been hired to build the actual houses, though Habitat
experienced many delays due to poor local management of the
workers. The local dermatological institute, the
government organization responsible for care of leprosy
patients, owns the land that the building site is located
on.


5. (SBU) Though a variety of officials from Nanning,
Congzuo and Fusui who were present during the Consulate's
visit expressed enthusiasm over the project (perhaps
because of the presence of the Consulate party),local
farmers whose crops bordered the village were not
supportive of the new buildings and accused HFH of
encroaching on their land. The Habitat representative
noted that local farmers have historically discriminated
against the leprosy patients by stealing their few animals.
The farmers also are resentful of both the attention being
paid to the leprosy patients by Habitat as well as the land
owned by the dermatological institute used to house the
patients, which they regard as theirs and which probably
was, in fact, taken from them when the original house were
built. As a result, the farmers have sown crops up to the
back wall of the HFH project and periodically have come by
to shout protests against the project. Habitat will
install locked doors on the old houses that are being
vacated to enable leprosy patients use them as stables and
barns to protect their small number of livestock and
chickens.

Lacking Legal Status: Cutting Through Red Tape
-------------- -

6. (SBU) China does not officially recognize Habitat for
Humanity as an NGO. Without this recognition, funding
options are limited. The lack of legal status also makes
routine tasks such as providing receipts to volunteer
groups and other vendors difficult. The organization does
not feel optimistic that it will gain legal status given
China's complex NGO registration rules and historic
distrust of NGOs. Unwilling to remain in limbo over its
status, Habitat is trying to become affiliated with Guangxi
University in Nanning as an education organization
exploring the use of low-cost, user-friendly, and
environmentally-friendly building materials, such as earth-
concrete bricks. Under this proposal, Guangxi University's
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture would provide
administrative support and limited funding while Habitat
would retain control over its funds and would have the
freedom to do research into materials and construction
techniques, conduct experiments (build houses),and provide
training (to volunteers and homeowners).


7. (SBU) Habitat has submitted a proposal to the University
to establish under the College of Civil Engineering and
Architecture a center for research into low-cost and
environmentally-friendly building materials. An example of
preliminary work is a brick made from 90% dirt and 10%
concrete that can be manually produced by farmers using a
simple compression machine. The bricks can be used within
seven days though they reach their full strength after 25
days. The bricks are interlocking and do not need mortar
between their joints though mortar is poured around rebar
supports down vertical holes that line up through all of
the bricks. The proposal has been approved by the College
but is awaiting final approval from the University itself.

Consulate Assistance
--------------

8. (SBU) Habitat asked the Consulate to support its
proposal with the University. The Consul General took
advantage of a visit to call on the University Vice
President and its Foreign Affairs Office director to raise
the topic of Habitat's proposal. The officials were

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familiar with the proposal and the Vice President said she
had attended a committee meeting the previous evening to
discuss the proposal but that no decision had been made.
Habitat's representative, when told of the advocacy, was
very appreciative of the Consulate's low-keyed expression
of interest and expressed hope that this would be a boost
to getting the proposal acted on.

Comment
--------------

9. (SBU) The future of Habitat for Humanity's Guangxi
office remains in a state of flux. As of the date of the
transmission of this message, Guangxi University has still
not made a decision on Habitat's proposal. Habitat's
representative in Guangxi expressed great concern over the
future of the organization if the agreement with the
University falls through. Habitat's international office
has already drained all of its funds and resources for this
fiscal year on relief efforts for victims of Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita in the United States. Habitat's overall
strategy for bypassing China's reluctance to grant NGO
status to the organization is for its offices to become
research centers. If the Guangxi University proposal
fails, it is likely that the Guangxi branch will fold and
become a part of the much more financially stable Hong Kong
regional office. We also understand that Habitat may
reorganize itself into a "business consultancy"
headquartered in Hong Kong but operating through branches
in China, thereby skirting the legal restrictions on
foreign NGOs while essentially maintaining its operational
model, sort of a Habitat for Humanity with Chinese
characteristics.


10. (U) The next message in our "journey to the west"
series is on our last stop in Guangxi, Behai -- almost
literally the pearl of the region.

DONG