Habitat News
Bernadette Interview
Habitat New Zealand recently hosted Habitat Cambodia Country Director Bernadette Bolo-Duthy at our National Conference, as well as Auckland and Waikato Global Village events. We asked Bernadette to take a break from her busy schedule to run through a little ‘Q & A” with Habitat News Readers.
Q: What inspires you about your
work?
A: As a Filipino, and
having worked with informal settlers with the same housing problems
as the Cambodians, I have always had an interest in housing rights.
Too often people living in poverty housing conditions find that
they have very little say as to where and how they can live. If a
government decides to take their land away for development
purposes, these people have few options available to them. They
must deal with the cards that they have been dealt. There’s
great fulfillment in being able to stand up with those living in
poverty when there is the potential for injustice and an imbalance
in power.
Q: What was your background
prior to joining Habitat in July 2007?
A: For 15 years I worked
for an organisation dedicated to the housing rights of the poor.
This involved negotiating with government on the proposed
relocation of more than 7,000 families facing eviction from
Manila’s largest slum area. My first job in Cambodia was in
Phnom Penh from 1994-1997 training and assisting urban poor
communities in stopping evictions and negotiating with government.
When I joined Habitat Cambodia, I was particularly attracted to the
Battambang project as it pilots an inner city slum upgrading and
land security project that allows Cambodians to live in the city.
This is unlike the many urban projects that Habitat for Humanity
Cambodia implements in resettlement sites that are 20-30km outside
of Phnom Penh.
Q: You’ve been in the job
for three years now and are responsible for 50 staff. Has there
been any occasion that confirmed for you that you are in the right
job?
A: Many examples spring to
mind. I think about this single mum with three young children who
was struggling to provide for them by running a small shop on Phnom
Penh’s dump site (which is now closed). As a successful
candidate for ownership of a new Habitat home, she became a skilled
brick layer while helping build her new home. For a while, while
learning her new trade, she would regularly travel 60km back to the
city to run her small business as well. She is an incredibly hard
worker and mum. She inspires me to work harder for other struggling
families in need.
Q: Why would you encourage New
Zealanders to support the work of Habitat?
A: Whether Kiwis donate or
volunteer, their generosity makes a huge difference. For just $US
1,700 they can provide a family with a home to call their own one
day. While this may seem like a low cost to us, not every Cambodian
can afford this and we are working on making housing accessible to
the poorest of the poor also. In the meantime, we can still help
them improve their quality of life through other means such as
water sanitation. For a donation of less than $US 1,000 we were
able to supply a new pump and water tank for 348 school children in
one community to use. Previously they had to walk miles in order to
obtain fresh, drinkable water. Please don’t stop now New
Zealand. Your life-saving support is still desperately needed to
provide Cambodians with a better quality of life.
Q: What is your experience of
Kiwi volunteers?
A: Kiwis are hard workers
and we appreciate them because they don’t like seeing a job
half done. For many, a Global Village Trip is not just a one-off,
been-there-done-that experience. Several Kiwis wrote to help us
design a house-brace that helps prevent a home’s collapse
during the typhoon season. It has now become a core element of
Habitat Cambodia’s rural house strengthening project. I will
never forget Kiwi volunteers doing the haka at the end of
Habitat’s Jimmy & Rosalyn Carter work project. At first,
the locals thought it strange that these burly builders might
consider doing a “dance” for them! However, once the
haka was revealed, it was a powerful and very moving
experience.
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