Little Stars Luxor - Improving standards in homes

Improving living conditions in family homes in the outlying villages and in Luxor's more dilapidated care homes

Major work was carried out on two homes during February: one at Nage Birka and one at Haja Marise. The work was funded by one of our supporters who is a family sponsor. Two more donations have been received to cover renovations of homes in Haja Marise which is one of the poorest villages on the west bank.

A general report on the progess of the renovations is given in our February Newsletter and more detailed reports can be seen through the following links.

HAJA MARISE ...................................... NAGE BIRKA

Work has been progressing with improvements to homes throughout the final months of 2009. In January 2010 we were given a donation by one of our sponsors to make improvements to two houses in out scheme. The first was to be her own family but the second was to be of our choice. We chose what we thought was our 'worst case' which was a family home in Haja Marise. The mud floors and roofs of these homes are being replaced and a toilet is being installed in one home. It is impossible in the second home as there is no water supply.

Since the beginning of the year, Little Stars has bought almost 100 beds and mattresses for families where children were sleeping on the floor and were susceptible to attacks from vermin and scorpions. A bed and mattress costs approximately £25 and makes a real difference to living conditions inside a house. Roof beams have also been mended at a cost of £10 for each split palm trunk beam; this includes the cost of labour. Electricity systems have been made safe where there actually is any electricity. Electrical installation costs around £10 per room to conceal the wires and put in sockets to replace draped wires that are just twisted together. The major renovation of homes has been in the installation of toilets where possible. The cost is £70 for a toilet with walls, a door, tiled floor, and either a pit or piping into an existing communal septic tank. Apart from the bricks, everything is done with recycled materials where possible.

The photos shown above show work that has taken place in three different villages. The top row shows new toilets either installed or under construction. The first photo shows the toilet that replaced the pot shown in the first photo of the March update. The bottom row shows a photo with some of the news beds in a mud brick residence where eight children were sleeping on the floor. The middle photo is of the new shelves put in a mini-market created to give income to a widow without support. The last photo is of a newly repaired electrical system from which a small child had previously had a severe electrical shock.

At present our expenditure is devoted entirely to our sponsored families but we hope to extend this provision in the future. Repairs in the pipe-line include the installation of taps with sinks (cost £30 each home), installation of fans (cost £15 each), replacement of broken roof beams (£10 each), creation of a roof on a totally roofless home (£100) and various other small cost improvements. What is greatly needed in the houses where there are many children is a refrigerator. Temperatures in the summer reach over 45 centigrade and without a refrigerator it is impossible to keep what little food and milk they have from decaying rapidly. Our funds as yet do not stretch this far.

During March 2009, the first of our renovation projects starts in the family homes of Nage Birka and Haja Marise. Many of the homes of the families in our programme are without basic facilities such as toilets and many are without any furniture which means that children sleep on the floor where they fall victim to vermin attacks and skin infections.

Our first building projects include the addition of walls to separate rudimentary toilet facilities from the main living area. As can be seen from the photos below, most toilets are without solid flooring, doors or sanitation. A second project is to provide beds and mattresses to get the children off the cold mud floors.

..... This broken jar is the toilet of a family with 5 children. ...This old tin is the toilet for three generations of women........This cane 'cupboard is the only furniture in this house.

When there is little money to care for people there is seldom any left over for the upkeep of where they live. In the villages surrounding Luxor many people still live with dirt floors and no internal plumbing and although Luxor’s children’s homes are above this situation, the majority are in dire need of maintenance, repair and updating.

The dream of Little Stars, along with several other charities that Little Stars are working with, is to replace those buildings that are about to fall down with new buildings in a village setting where orphans are cared for within their own culture and disabled children can get treatment while their mothers can learn a trade making saleable items for Fair Trade centres. This is an ambitious project but it is achievable with your assistance.

In the meantime, living conditions in some homes could be improved merely with the purchase of small items like rubber sheets and electronic mosquito killers, in others far more work is needed.

The above photos are not the worst case scenario of care homes but they do show how great the problem is.

With your help, the Trust Fund will be able to do something positive about alleviating this situation.