DEDON and the Dekeyser & Friends Foundation cooperate on social re-housing project for scavenger Families in Cebu, Philippines.
In the current project 17 Fellows from 14 different countries spend six months in the Philippines on scholarships to learn from experienced community developer Dr. Heinz Kulüke how to re-house scavengers who live on garbage dumpsites.
The Cebu Re-housing Project is thereby the setting for a unique cooperation between DEDON, Dekeyser&Friends, Paris based designer and architect Jean-Marie Massaud and Philippine NGO JPIC-IDC. DEDON’s longstanding social efforts in Cebu led to offering its unique weaving and handicraft skills for the development of a new village that re-houses 50 families, which currently live on a garbage dumpsite.
It thus came almost natural for DEDON to contribute to this innovation of a house model that includes woven walls. DEDON built the prototype of the new house and moreover has pledged to donate its synthetic and durable DEDON Fibre to the future villagers. It will also support the beneficiaries by providing training, which will furnish them with weaving skills.
These new skills will not only allow the scavengers to contribute an essential part to the completion of their houses but further provide them with a sustainable income opportunity afterwards in the export market for woven goods from Cebu. This combination turns the construction of a new social housing village into an opportunity to escape dire poverty and unemployment.
For more information on the Cebu Re-housing Project and the educational programs of the Dekeyser & Friends Foundation for young adults between 18 and 28 please visit: