House Building in Malaysia

Global Village is Habitat’s flagship volunteer building program. The program offers volunteers a chance to build lasting friendships with fellow team members and with Habitat home partner families.

Before going to Malaysia, our students attended several workshops to learn about the Malaysian history and culture, the organization, the housing problem in Malaysia as well as in Hong Kong. In January 2014, a team of 17 HKUST students and staff went to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to build a house for a local couple. The team had a mission to build an affordable and decent house for the family with the support from local staff of Habitat for Humanity.

When our volunteers arrived at the building site, they were welcomed by the local staff of Habitat for Humanity Malaysia as well as the home owner. Then they started to work on the 5-day house building project. The tasks they have done including mixing cements, laying bricks to build the wall, digging a drainage system, building the kitchen table, laying bedroom partitions, making patio floor, etc. A certificate ceremony was held at the end of the building day.

Apart from the building project, the team had 1.5 days of cultural exploration activities in the surrounding areas of Kota Kinabalu. They visited Sabah Museum and Mari-Mari Cultural Village. They learned more about the Malaysian history and culture after the trip.