This programme began with an institutional collaboration agreement between the Caja de Vivienda Popular (CVP) (the public body responsible for low-income housing), the Curaduría Urbana Nº 4 (the organisation that grants development and building permits) and La Salle University (ULS). This agreement established two lines of action:
Direct intervention by performing diagnoses and drawing up housing improvement plans.
Perfecting the existing institutional instruments to support the renovation of precarious housing in outlying neighborhoods.
The first line of action involved investigating the living conditions of every family living in the neighborhoods of Laches, Lourdes, Consuelo and Rocío and then planning long-term technical support activities (projects to improve individual homes). These tasks were performed by students as a part of their professional internships for the Social Work, Civil Engineering and Architecture Departments and lecturers who acted as tutors.
The second line of action involved the creation of a permanent Urban Observatory and Information Office, located at La Salle University, where low-income people can get legal advice. A more efficient operational and logistical structure was also designed to encourage collaboration between institutions, thereby simplifying the procedures for obtaining building permits and subsequent housing subsidies.
The project developed in two steps: projection and execution. The university funded the first phase of the intervention project in the neighborhoods of Laches, Lourdes, Consuelo y Rocío with a total donation of $22,500. Then, when families obtained construction licences, Caja de Vivienda Popular granted loans and subsidies for the housing-improvement work.
In Colombia, an estimated 2,573,991 families live in precarious housing. This problem is most serious in the large cities, where various waves of migration from rural to urban areas have created widespread overcrowding in precarious neighbourhoods and houses. The people living in these conditions lack the technical, financial and legal support they need to improve their homes or neighbourhoods.
According to recent technical studies presented to the Bogotá City Council by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the city is located in an area with a medium-to-high risk of seismic activity. The areas most vulnerable in the event of an earthquake are the outlying neighbourhoods, due to their poor condition and faulty construction. The study concluded that an earthquake in the city could kill around 40,000 people and wound 260,000.
The mission undertaken by the university involves promoting training in individual and relationship-related aspects aimed at promoting socio-cultural change. The education of our future professionals must emphasize social commitment.
The programme began with an institutional collaboration agreement between the Caja de Vivienda Popular (CVP) (the public body responsible for low-income housing), the Curaduría Urbana Nº 4 (the organisation that grants development and building permits) and La Salle University (ULS). This agreement established two lines of action:
Direct intervention by performing diagnoses and drawing up housing improvement plans. Perfecting the existing institutional instruments to support the renovation of precarious housing in outlying neighbourhoods. The first line of action involved investigating the living conditions of every family living in the neighbourhoods of Laches, Lourdes, Consuelo and Rocío and then planning long-term technical-support activities (projects to improve individual homes). These tasks were performed by students as a part of their professional internships for the Social Work, Civil Engineering and Architecture Departments and lecturers who acted as tutors.
The second line of action involved the creation of a permanent Urban Observatory and Information Office, located at La Salle University, where low-income people can get legal advice. A more efficient operational and logistical structure was also designed to encourage collaboration between institutions, thereby simplifying the procedures for obtaining building permits and subsequent housing subsidies.
The project developed in two steps: projection and carry out. The university funded the first phase of the intervention project in the neighbourhoods of Laches, Lourdes, Consuelo y Rocío with a total donation of $22,500. Then, when families obtain construction licence, Caja de Vivienda Popular granted loans and subsidies for the housing-improvement work.
In this project, a conceptual management model was formulated to comprehensively improve housing in irregularly constructed neighborhoods and provide decent, safe living conditions for the people who live in these areas.
The project had three main goals:
To get students and educators to become involved in and take responsibility for Colombia’s housing problems.
To improve living conditions in self-built neighborhoods in Bogotá, starting with Laches, Lourdes, Consuelo and Rocío.
To simplify the institutional system for obtaining information and funds for people with precarious housing.
The programme began in March 2004 with the project to identify the strong and weak points of the houses. Students, lecturers, a project coordinator and external collaborators participated in the project. The coordinator was responsible for representing the project in dealing with city institutions, ministries, the rector and for coordinating the work of the group of lecturers acting as tutors. The group of tutors consisted of one lecturer from each department participating in the project: a social work lecturer specialised in community and family action, a civil-engineering lecturer specialised in structural assessment and an architecture lecturer specialised in low-income housing. This group's mission was to monitor and control the work presented by the students.
32 students per semester took part in the project. All of them were in the last three semesters of the civil-engineering, architecture or social work degree programmes. The students participated in the project to meet their professional internship requirement (20 hours of field work, which corresponds to 6 degree credits). They were divided into eight urban brigades to carry out their field work with each brigade consisting of one social-work student, one civil-engineering student and one architecture student.
The students were required to attend a training workshop before starting the internship. Their final mission was to draw up a project to solve or at least mitigate the problems found in each home.
Specific responsibilities in the project were assigned to the Civil Engineering, Architecture and Social Work Departments, taking into consideration the professional background of the participating lecturers and students. The Civil Engineering Department was responsible for evaluating the technical condition of the structure of the houses, in compliance with the earthquake resistance legislation in force, and for ensuring that the internal service networks were functioning properly. After assessing the houses, the Civil Engineering Department made technical recommendations and proposals to improve their structure. The Architecture Department prepared architectural reports on the legal, functional and spatial conditions of each home as well as their habitability. These reports explained the physical needs of the homes and the degree to which they complied with urban-planning laws.
Although each department had a specific mission, the work groups were encouraged to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration to promote comprehensive knowledge of each case.
Each urban brigade included two professionals from NGOs that collaborate with the CVP and three community leaders. Their goals were to help train the students, guide the urban brigades through the neighborhoods and act as liaisons to the community and the families.
The brigades did their field work during the first part of each semester. In this period, each brigade carried out a total of six sessions. In each session, four houses were assigned to each brigade. By the end of the field work, the brigades had worked on a total of 192 homes.
Training and promotion of the activities carried out:
A series of three lectures, given by the directors of the CVP in order to introduce university staff to the pertinent issues related to the programme.
Training workshops for students selected from different departments, directed by university tutors and/or professionals from the NGOs that work with the CVP.
An interdisciplinary course (four hours per week), in which the tutors reviewed the status of the students' work and projects.
The assessments and projects that resulted from the activities of the students and the university tutors were reviewed, approved and signed by the tutors. The owners of the homes then committed to carrying out the planned improvements. Once the project had been completed, the programme coordinators took the necessary steps to obtain institutional approval and financing for the project. The owners went to the Curaduría Urbana and submitted the documents required for building permits. The tutors and students from the Architecture and Engineering Departments were available to deal with any technical or legal problems that arose during the procedure. Once the permit had been granted (which is required to obtain subsidies), it was sent to the CVP, which was responsible for dealing with all necessary institutions, in order to apply for and obtain the 'Local or National Housing Improvement Subsidy'.
With this project, the university was able to fulfil some basic principles of its mission: helping society’s neediest and most helpless people (preferably the poor) and developing knowledge about Colombian and Latin American problems that can be transmitted to society. Through professional internships focusing on projects that benefit society, the university provided its students with political education and encouraged them to exercise their profession with social commitment. By working in groups and dealing with public and private institutions, the students consolidated their interdisciplinary and socio-political education.
The initial results of the experience showed that the neighbourhood communities had learned the basic principles of construction safety and urban coexistence. They had also obtained architectural and structural designs for their homes that they would not have had access to under normal conditions. The public institutions that took part in the programme improved their administrative processes and regulatory and legal frameworks in order to be more efficient in their support for low-income housing. For example, this project helped simplify the procedure for obtaining building permits and subsidies.
This project was evaluated by all of the parties that signed the collaboration agreement. The following were the conclusions of the evaluation: The curricular structure of the professional internships should be modified to make them better suited to field work. The project needs more funding. No more families should be added to the programme until all those already participating in it have obtained tangible benefits. Greater collaboration should be required of the public institutions involved with the project. Finally, the evaluation highlighted the fact that the different departments found it difficult to find opportunities for collective debate and reflection due to scheduling conflicts.
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