Heliópolis is located in the southeast part of São Paulo, in Brazil. The community is divided into 14 plots called “glebas,” where tens of thousands of people live in crowded spaces. It was considered one of the largest slums, or “favelas” in Brazil, but through a process of urbanization, it is improving and now has the status of a neighborhood district.
Amway volunteers have been helping to speed up the development of Heliópolis by remodeling homes for families in need, working with Habitat for Humanity. Last month, 36 Amway Business Owners, employees and suppliers joined Habitat to remodel 15 homes, working alongside the home owners.
For 120 Amway distributors and employees in Guatemala, their annual trip ended with tired bodies and happy hearts.
They came from across Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States to begin construction on an entire neighborhood of 40 homes in Usumatán, with land purchased by Amway and top Amway distributor Tim Foley.
This week in, ten of those homes took shape for local families, many who will own a home for the first time in their lives.
The volunteer group gets bigger every year, and as the volunteers make their way home, they are already talking about what they might be able to accomplish during next year’s trip.
Thanks to Nancy Cortez for her remote reporting from Guatemala.
Note: Originally posted incorrectly as 12 homes – corrected to 10 homes on 3/4/2012. -JH
A group of Amway employees and Business Owners are making their annual journey to Zacapa, Guatemala, where they begin work on a new neighborhood of houses sponsored by Amway and Tim Foley.
This week, more than 120 Amway volunteers from the US and Central America - the largest Habitat for Humanity group ever in Guatemala – are working on the building of 10 homes alongside the homeowners and their families. It’s hard work, but great experiences for the volunteers and the families.
Closing out a week of stories about homes, we travel to Guatemala. However, this story encompasses many countries, because many Amway distributors and employees were part of this project.
It started with a group of Amway distributors from the United States, who travel to Guatemala every year to help build homes through Habitat for Humanity.
Last February, the program was brought to a greater scale, when Amway distributors and Amway Guatemala invited the wider Amway family to participate. Amway distributors and employees from the United States, Mexico, Barbados, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Colombia and El Salvador took part in the project, constructing 12 homes for families.
Amway also contributed $500,000 toward the purchase of land, matching the $250,000 gift of Tim Foley, longtime Amway distributor and Amway Founders Council member. This will enable more than 40 homes to be constructed over the next 5 years.
This program was the inspiration for the launch of a formal partnership between Amway and Habitat for Humanity that stretched among the five other countries whose stories we covered this week.
In November, the Amway-Habitat for Humanity campaign extended to Costa Rica through a campaign that raised funds from the sale of select Amway products and through donations of a portion of annual renewal fees.
In total, $15,000 was collected by Amway Costa Rica and donated in November toward the construction of homes for families in Peñas Blancas, San Ramón de Alajuela. Amway volunteers helped in the construction of those homes.
Stay tuned for one of our largest Habitat for Humanity projects in Guatemala, which we will cover tomorrow!
Continuing our series on home building in Central and South America, today we travel to São Paulo, Brazil for a Habitat for Humanity project that took place in September
At the Jardim Vale das Flores (“Garden Valley of the Flowers”), Amway distributors and employees renovated two homes for families in need.
Amway volunteers participated in the renovations, as well as donated $4,700 to cover the expenses.
Amway Brazil is also working with Habitat for Humanity to identify projects to support families that were devastated by severe flooding in Rio de Janeiro, with new homes to be built in 2012.
There have been so many home building and renovation projects through Habitat for Humanity for families in need over the last year, that we are dedicating an entire week to follow the stories across six countries.
Our first stop is in Argentina, in La Matanza, a province of Buenos Aires. There, Amway Argentina worked with its distributors to launch a “Buy a Brick” campaign to raise money for family homes. They raised money by selling special Amway cleaning kits, as well as donating a portion of the annual renewal fees to the campaign.
They raised $8,000 to go toward the construction of a new home for a family, which took place in September.
