Giving locally and globally
We recently heard from Steve Cook, the newest member of the Tithe team at Habitat for Humanity International. He’s new to the Tithe team but has spent several years supporting Habitat donors and tithers in the national office of Guatemala.
Steve called Sharon Steele, Executive Director, to say thank for supporting the Global Mission Fund. Tithes from U.S. affiliates often provide the seed funding for pilot projects that have transformational impacts on families and communities—innovative projects that have few or no other sources of initial financial support.
Since Habitat for Humanity-DeKalb’s inception in 1988 we have donated a portion of our unrestricted income to the Habitat affiliate in Bangladesh. The tithe is based on a percentage of the affiliate’s net profits.
After a challenging 2020, due to donations from organizations and individuals, HFHD tithed the largest dollar amount in a decade. This is a direct reflection of the overall success of this fiscal year.
The funds are used for the construction of Habitat homes and other projects in Bangladesh. Other projects could include water and sanitation programs, building resilient urban slum settlements, and disaster response.
Here’s just one example of the difference that Habitat for Humanity Bangladesh created for a young family:
Young bride Mina moved to her in-laws’ home in Akrail Village of Shakua Union of Trishal Upazila in Mymensingh District 8 years back when she got married to Rajon, a barber by profession. They started living in their old tiny home that was made of CI sheet roof, bamboo, and polythene. Over the years, their family grew bigger and so did their challenges, especially ensuring a healthy place for their kids. Mina has two sons aged 6 and 1 respectively and a daughter aged 5 now. Both Mina and her husband have been so concerned about the safety and security of their kids. However, their poor economic condition barely allowed them to make a strong move to have a safe home.
Mina’s husband runs a barbershop at the local bazaar and earns around BDT 180-200(US$ 2.20-2.35) a day and BDT 5500-5700(US$ 64-67) a month. Being the only breadwinner of the family, Rajon often struggled to manage the daily needs of the family. Therefore, both Mina and her husband cherished a dream to have a good home where there would be a healthy environment for their kids and the kids would have a better place to enjoy their childhood. Their daughter Sumitra also wanted to have a better home where she could play with her siblings and even host friends as well.
The year 2020 has come to be the utmost blessed year for Mina and Rajon’s family as they have been chosen to be a home partner of Habitat for Humanity under the Trishal Housing Project. Mina and her family moved to the new “Habitat Home” in March 2020. This home has a big room, a veranda, and a sanitary toilet attached. “I can’t express my joy to have such a beautiful home. My kids just love this home”-said, Mina. Not only a decent and secure home, but they also have access to improved sanitation facilities, she added.
Rajon can now enjoy a stress-free work at the shop thinking, no money to be invested in repairing their home in the upcoming monsoon. This gives him a big relief and mental peace.
Habitat for Humanity has been working in Mymensingh for more than 20 years and supported thousands of families with decent homes, water, sanitation and hygiene, and disaster risk reduction and response, and provided training on various awareness-raising and income-generating issues.