Some of the treasures of the history of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine of the Order of Augustinian Recollects and the environments and spaces where it has carried out its work throughout history and today.
In the early centuries of evangelization in the Philippines, the Province of Saint Nicholas ensured that the home was an indispensable space for human and spiritual development. The missionaries committed to planning and providing housing for the natives, enabling them to have decent dwellings in the new towns and villages.
Housing remains a part of the evangelization work of the Province. Recognized as a universal right, it is also an essential space for the “domestic Church.” Homes are where individuals learn to collaborate, and an atmosphere of love and deference fosters personal projects. They serve as the primary centres for the education of minors and the care of the elderly.
Conversely, the absence of worthy housing jeopardizes any effort toward evangelization and human advancement: health, privacy, peacefulness, and dignity are unattainable in substandard housing.
The most comprehensive and complex housing project of the Province has been Handumanan, a complete village with all integrated services. However, two other projects in Brazil are of significant scale and impact a large number of beneficiaries.
In Guaraciaba do Norte (Ceará), the Worthy Home [Hogar Digno] project has, since 2001, provided over a thousand brick houses (photo) to families who previously lived in shanties made of canes and clay, the natural habitat of the insect that transmits Chagas disease. These impoverished residents paid minimal rent for their shacks to landlords, including their employers, hacienda, or plantation owners, in a clear case of exploitation.
The brick houses have improved the health and economic status of families. Relying on crowdfunding and the support of Spanish public entities, the project involved the beneficiaries in the construction of each home.
In Labrea in the Amazon, the houses are constructed of wood in the traditional manner of the region. The beneficiaries are low-income families, immigrants who have left rural areas in search of education and health well-being in urban centres.
They have left behind an environment where they had reliable food sources such as fishing, hunting, foraging, and small-scale cassava agriculture. In the city, without employment or space for cultivation, the economic pressure is immense.
The Prelature of Labrea has distributed more than 500 communal houses. A hundred of these homes are situated in a single village, Solidarity Land [Terra Solidaria], where the approach is comprehensive and holistic: housing, water and sanitation, leadership training, water usage, infrastructure maintenance, domestic hygiene, and waste management.
In all these projects, there is a stipulation that the houses built and distributed cannot be sold on the market for private investment, profit acquisition, subleasing, or hedging.
