Sep 25 2007
An Irish philanthropist, Niall Mellon, has unveiled plans to build the world's first not-for-profit housing super- factory in South Africa in response to the inability of traditional methods of house construction to keep pace with the growth of homelessness among the Developing World's poor. The Irishman's radical plans to build the first such factory near Cape Town got the backing of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the South African Government which donated the site for its construction.
At a global launch in New York attended by Archbishop Tutu, the Niall Mellon Township Trust (NMTT) - an Irish housing charity currently building 5,000 houses per year in South Africa with Government support - announced the construction of the first ever mass-production timber frame housing factory. The Trust also launched a worldwide appeal for $15 million in philanthropic donations to enable the project.
"While governments and agencies around the Developing World are striving to deliver the fundamental right to proper housing, the time has come to face reality. In South Africa alone - the second wealthiest country in Continental Africa - 10 million of its citizens live in abject squalor in make-shift shacks in Townships. In spite of the fact that the South African Government has built over 2 million houses since 1994, and has fully supported our housing schemes from day one, our collective efforts to build sufficient housing by conventional methods of construction are being outpaced by the rate of increase of homelessness. We need to adopt a much more radical approach and, with the right backing, the Trust will build one super factory in each of South Africa's 9 provinces over time."
Mr. Mellon unveiled the Trust's plans for a housing super-factory plan in a media briefing at the office of the American Ireland Fund (AIF) in New York, where earlier he addressed a meeting of Irish-American donors in the presence of Archbishop Tutu. Giving the NMTT plan his strongest public endorsement, the Archbishop said "This bold initiative is the kind of solution we need in South Africa and elsewhere in the world where homelessness if the root cause of endemic poverty."
President of AIF, Kieran McLoughlin said "Niall Mellon's pioneering project underlines the contribution that modern Irish philanthropy is capable of making at a global level. It is tremendous to see a new generation of successful Irish business people embracing the culture of philanthropy which is one of America's greatest exports. It also reflects an unbroken tradition in Ireland of giving to the Developing World."
Mellon's pioneering project involves the construction of a huge 10,000m2 structure situated in Black Heath, an industrial area, just to the East of Cape Town. The Trust's twin-track approach will see the continuation of its traditional block-built on-site house construction methods which will ramp up to an annual output of 5,000 units by 2010. In parallel, the factory-produced timber frame method will produce 4,600 units a year.
The Niall Mellon Township Trust's global fundraising appeal is initially focused on Ireland, the United States and the United Kingdom. At a briefing of AIF donors, Mr. Mellon told Irish-American philanthropists about the Trust's fundraising strategy which includes a calendar of donor networking events, including the US cities of New York, Washington DC, and Atlanta, Georgia. Similar events in Ireland and Britain will include the cities of Dublin, London, Birmingham and Swansea. There are plans for the expansion of the donor network to other countries with prominent Irish-American populations.
The Black Heath factory will employ up to 200 skilled operatives, mostly from the surrounding area. Additionally, the Trust will train 200 workers to erect the frames on site and the houses will be completed by trained carpenters, plasterers, plumbers & electricians. The Irish charity is working in partnership with the Provincial Government, the City of Cape Town and the local community in transforming the lives of up to 1 million impoverished people in the Western Cape over the lifespan of the project.
The Trust has created a Task Force of experts to oversee design, engineering, technical and production challenges in delivering the ambitious 4-year housing plan. The Task Force's mandate is to ensure that that the Mellon Trusts houses set a new benchmark standard in South Africa so that low cost mass-produced timber frame housing does not compromise quality standards. Each of the Mellon Trust house will have 2 or 3 bedrooms, a fully-plumbed bathroom and kitchen/living area.
Speed of manufacture and construction with a small number of skilled workers means that this method of addressing the housing in South Africa gives all South African shack dwellers the hope of being home owners by the target date of 2014. The charity sees this first factory as a pilot project and with support from the South African Government and international donors, hopes to follow with one factory in each of the nine provinces in South Africa.