As part of its Work Within the Community project, the senior sales team from Mira Showers, the UK’s leading manufacturer of showers and shower accessories, are working on a pioneering initiative to enable the disadvantaged to get onto the housing ladder.
Called Habitat for Humanity, the charity enables would-be homeowners to use their labour – or ‘sweat equity’ as it is called – to replace the capital that would be required otherwise so that they can work 500 hours to provide the deposit for a home. The site in Liverpool is in Granby-Toxteth, a racially diverse area with more than 54 nationalities.
Mira is now a partner with Habitat for Humanity, so as well as the senior sales team working on site and performing basic laboring, the company will also supply products that are installed in the homes.
Paul Hollingworth, Sales Director, Mira Showers, commented on the makeover: “Such projects are very much in keeping with our principles of Corporate Social Responsibility; We judge our business not only by the normal business standards, but also by the difference we make to the world in which we live. We believe that partnering initiatives such as Habitat for Humanity brings sustained, collective value to our employees, our customers and society at large.”
Habitat for Humanity is a self-help charity founded by Millard Fuller, an American self-made millionaire, who believed that the poor didn’t need charity so much as capital.
In 1973 Millard took the housing partnership concept to Zaire in Africa. The model worked just as well there and more than 100 homes were built in the first project. So began a programme of expansion, and now more than 3000 communities in more than 90 countries (including Great Britain and Northern Ireland) have managed to solve their own local housing issues through the Habitat for Humanity model of self-help.
