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More than 15,000 young people to build homes; 100,000 to raise awareness of substandard housing issues through social networks
Bangkok, 12th February 2014 – Habitat for Humanity today launched its Habitat Youth BUILD 2014 campaign, galvanizing Asia’s youth to fight poverty housing in the Asia-Pacific region. Now in its third year, the initiative expects to attract more than 15,000 young builders and 100,000 online supporters.
Awareness and fundraising activities will take place across Asia-Pacific over the next three months, building to a mass-participation one-day build in multiple countries on 3 May.
“Youth across Asia see poverty housing all around them and want to address the obvious growing inequality. By using their social networks to raise awareness and funds, or by physically building homes, young people are taking action to make a difference to the lives of low-income families in the region. Each year Habitat Youth BUILD gathers increasing momentum,” said Rick Hathaway, Habitat for Humanity vice president for Asia-Pacific.
The campaign kicks off with a T-shirt design competition, with an iPad Air up for grabs as the top prize. Chosen by popular online vote, the selected design will be worn by thousands of volunteers building homes on 3 May.
To find out more about Habitat Youth BUILD and the T-shirt design competition, visit habitatyouthbuild.org.
Youth in 11 countries – Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Philippines, South Korea and Thailand – will campaign on- and offline to garner support for the movement and raise vital funds to tackle poverty housing in the region.
Habitat Youth BUILD 2014 builds on last year’s success that involved more than 100,000 volunteers in seven countries across 42 sites. The campaign supported more than 700 low-income families.
The winner of 2013’s T-shirt competition was 19-year-old Cambodian student Lymei Sun. Lymei joined Habitat for Humanity Cambodia for their Youth BUILD event in Phnom Penh and saw her popular design worn by hundreds of volunteers. She went on to encourage her classmates to support Habitat’s vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live.
Join the Habitat Youth BUILD 2014 community on Facebook – facebook.com/groups/habitatyouthbuild.
