Lafarge, Habitat for Humanity to provide affordable housing

Lafarge Mahaweli Cement recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka to provide affordable housing to the people in the North and the West.

The MoU was signed by Managing Director, Lafarge Mahaweli Cement, Anurag Kak and Vice-President, Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka, Mrs. Amila de Mel.

Under the MoU, Habitat Sri Lanka would help families to build homes at a lower cost. The initiative already begun in the northern and the western parts of the island, will receive the expertise and technological support of Lafarge Mahaweli Cement.

For Lafarge, affordable housing means helping people with low income to access housing at the most affordable cost under Lafarge's international theme 'Building better cities'.

The launch of the affordable housing program in Sri Lanka in 2013 has been an innovative challenge for Lafarge Mahaweli Cement.

The program, Savi Piyasa, (strong roof) teams up with financial institutions and provides architectural support to those obtaining loans to build houses.

National Director, Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka, Dr. Dinesh Kanagaratnam said, "Habitat for Humanity International was founded 35 years ago and today operates in over 70 countries globally.

Habitat launched operations in Sri Lanka in 1995.

"For the past 20 years, we have served over 20,000 families.

The Indian government funded project under which we are building 4,000 houses in the East is one of our key projects at present.

Habitat hopes to launch projects in Kalutara and in Muthurajawela, which would be our first initiative with Lafarge," a Habitat spokesman said.

"The synergy in terms of experience and expertise that both parties would bring to this initiative would allow us to provide the best possible housing solutions to our target market," he said.