Today’s Good People, Good Works will be presented in Spanish, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Many people around the world live under very challenging conditions. How do we change their lives? Is it really possible to put an end to homelessness, illness, and a lack of basic necessities? Where do we start?

Son, I think it’s the best thing that God could have given me, a house.

Conscientious viewers, welcome to today’s Good People, Good Works featuring the loving, hardworking non-profit group, A Roof for My Country, also known as “The Roof.” Headquartered in Chile, this organization builds housing for underprivileged individuals and families throughout Latin America. Supreme Master Television recently spoke with The Roof’s social director Claudio Castro, who explained its origins and growth across the continent.

A Roof for My Country was born in 1997 in Chile, and it was the result of an initiative by a group of university students who decided mainly to address the question of how young people from the university are connected with their country through their occupation, how they are tied in with their country.

They met with a Jesuit priest named Felipe Berrios, and began this project that seeks to link the academic world with families living in settlements in extreme poverty through the construction of emergency homes. So the idea is to go to these families, and for two days to live this experience of building with the family a home that improves their quality of life.

That really is what A Roof for My Country is about; that is, to connect those of us who have had the most opportunities, university students, with those who have had fewer opportunities, the families living in camps. The project was exported to Tacna, Peru. There were young people in El Salvador and youth in Peru, who began to replicate the project, and today it has grown and we are present in practically all countries of the continent.

A Roof for My Country is currently operating in 18 Latin American nations. They are still expanding, with an office scheduled to open in Venezuela by October 2010.

Chi, chi, chi, le, le, le, go Chile!

Well, I thank you all for helping us, and what else can be said? Because now we will have a place to sleep,

And well, to all of you, thanks a million. We sincerely thank you, thank you for what you have done. God bless you all! God bless you!

Bravo!

A Roof for My Country has a special approach to finding volunteers in each nation where it works.

How do you recruit volunteers?

It is very special because we go to the universities; first we come to a country starting from zero, I mean many times in many countries there is no concept of university volunteerism on a scale as massive as what we propose. Therefore we come to invite young people from universities to replicate this formula that we have used in different countries.

We also invite families to get involved, because families are the protagonists of this process, who receive a home and work for a home that they do not have; at first they are uncertain if we’ll get to build it or not. So everything starts from nothing; in each country we make an initial pilot project of five houses, allowing us to bring together a group of about 50 volunteers with a particular community.

A Roof for My Country is the best, congratulations, it is excellent work. The joy is not only for me, it’s for the families we help. It’s just a new beginning, we have to keep going.

A Roof for My Country has embraced the goal of rebuilding all blighted areas and those places destroyed by natural disaster in Chile. It has the vision of realizing this same objective in the rest of Latin America as well. We have built 65,000 emergency housing units across the continent, and just after the earthquake in Chile, in two months we mobilized over 100,000 volunteers to build more than 20,000 homes.

So Chile is by far the country that has contributed the most in terms of housing volume. I think that in the next countries or the rest of the countries, the project has grown so rapidly that I hope that we build to that level very soon. It is a Latin American project, which originated in Chile, but here in the central office there are people working who are from all countries. There are youth who have experienced

The Roof in their own countries and they have become part of the central office, and along with that the development of all countries. In Chile in 1997 there were 135, 000 families living in camps, and today there are less than 20,000, A Roof for Chile is taking care of about 10,000 families that are still living in camps, and this year those families should have clear solutions.

After this brief message, we’ll learn more about A Roof for My Country aiding Chileans and Haitians after devastating earthquakes, and hear from some volunteer about their experiences of assisting their brothers and sisters in need. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

I am happy to have this house, I am happy. I was asked if I liked it and I said, “Yes!” I am so happy because I never imagined it possible. I am so happy because after such an event I thought I was going to live in the streets forever. God sent me a Samaritan so I could have this house. I am so happy for all that was done. Because I could never imagine this! So I want to thank everyone very much, I am so very happy.

Welcome back to today’s Good People, Good Works featuring A Roof for My Country, a group based in Chile which through the efforts of its generous volunteers in 18 countries, constructs homes for vulnerable families all over Latin America. Claudio Castro, social director of The Roof now explains the strategies used by the organization to aid those affected by the powerful earthquakes that struck Chile and Haiti in early 2010.

The families for whom we are building are not families that had lived (socially) excluded historically, but they are families that lost their homes, the earthquake and the tsunami left them with nothing. But they are families that have access to resources, or who were working before, that have now lost their homes, have gone to live with relatives or are going to wait a while to recover their homes through subsidies or through their savings or with help from friends or relatives.

So it is special, because actually these families are living in emergency housing, but are not families who have lived all their lives excluded, and therefore for us are not considered as camps. We do make this differentiation.

But after the earthquake, we at The Roof divided our work, and so we left a team that continues to work with these families that we had been working with a long time, and so we maintain the 2010 target that all families living in camps have a solution. And at the same time a new team is taking charge of the reconstruction along with others, because here the magnitude of the earthquake was so large that the state and other organizations got involved in it.

It is exciting because finally we can go in with concrete assistance after the emergency. And we are able to give something that can have more of a long-term design, already if we believe it is temporary, we can design a little more.

The gratitude that people, the families show, when you give them the house, that has been like the best...

Yes, we try to react and to respond to emergencies of all countries every time something happens, so we were in the earthquake in Pisco (Peru) in 2007. In the Tabasco floods in Mexico in 2008, last year we were in Hurricane Ida, we were in the earthquake in Costa Rica, and now our most important goal is the earthquake in Haiti, in fact we opened offices to be part of the reconstruction of Haiti.

And we do not want Haiti to be rebuilt as it was before the earthquake, we want that the earthquake, while it has been a disaster of a truly terrible magnitude, together with the young people of Haiti, which has been the most beautiful part of all, we want to be able to involve youth in Haiti.

Before the earthquake, the youth of Haiti were planning to leave their country, they had little opportunity and they go to the United States, or France, or the Dominican Republic to continue their education.

Well, today we are making it possible for the young people of Haiti to remain in Haiti, or return to Haiti, to be protagonists of the reconstruction, so effectively this type of situation, like the earthquake in Chile prepares us to face another disaster of great magnitude.

Haiti New hope is born

We are here because we have to pass on this dream, we have to spread the desire; because something can be done; because that’s what being young is for.

Bonjour. Bonjour.

The issue in Haiti, the tragedy remained as just that: the earthquake, the tragedy, the destruction and sadness. So, why not bring a little joy to these people? Why not change the scenery?

I have the dignity to be able to receive visitors at home, to be able to say, “You may come in.” I now feel no shame, but before I used to feel shame. But today I don’t. Today I have the pleasure that when someone arrives at my house, praises; a thing very well done with care, with love, eh? So let it happen in the life of each one to see how good it is for us to feel fulfilled.

We have learned that there is no dignity without justice

Thousands of transitional houses built

It’s a contradiction to say it, because I wish that A Roof for My Country wouldn’t, it shouldn’t exist. We work so that A Roof for My Country can end.

I left aside a good income; I left aside a good job; I left aside things that don’t matter to start working on a future that does matter.

For the first time they are the protagonists Youth building a Latin America without poverty

A Roof for My Country www.untechoparamipais.org

With all Her love, Supreme Master Ching Hai is honoring A Roof for My Country with the Shining World Compassion Award and a contribution of US$30,000 to further their noble work in providing shelter to thousands of vulnerable people.

Our salute Claudio Castro, A Roof for My Country and all volunteers across Latin America for your caring efforts to improve the lives of those in need. You have indeed made so many people very, very happy. May we all support one another and elevate our world so everyone can have a fruitful, plentiful life.

For more details on A Roof for My Country, please visit www.UnTechoParaMiPais.org

Thanks for joining us today on Good People, Good Works. Up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May we all cherish the treasures given to us by Heaven.