Homes and Homeless

When you leave home you try to get a job and then possibly get a house, either by renting or by obtaining a mortgage. Food is plentiful and there are any number of local shops and supermarkets. Money? Well if you haven't got a job, it is difficult to manage on the available government benefits, but at least you do get something. But it's not the same everywhere.

Imagine - A country where mortgages are rare and the ability to repay them or pay rent hardly exists.

Imagine - A country where the average salary is £2.50 per month and a pint of beer costs 50 pence, burgers and chips cost £1.50 and there are few shops outside the big cities.

Imagine - A country where there is high unemployment.

Imagine - A country where there are no government benefits at all

Imagine - Imagine Uganda where providing somewhere to live is far more important.

There are a wide variety of different styles of housing. This is partly due to the original tribal background and tradition of the people and partly because of the availability of materials.

A typical house is a single-storey building made of locally produced mud blocks (a block is about twice the size of an English house brick).

Making and firing the bricks is a very common activity in Uganda and travelling round the countryside there are many stacks of bricks either drying out or built up with a space in the centre for firing. Scouts and school children often make bricks to construct school buildings for income generation.

The roofs are thatched with reeds, speargrass or banana leaves supported on a frame of wooden posts. As it is difficult to build big buildings with these materials each room is a separate building, either square or round. A 'house' may well be made up of four or five buildings (living room, kitchen, parents bedroom, children's bedroom and so on).

Every grown up young man in the family is expected to build his own hut and kitchen which is always located beside his father's main house. A toilet is built just a few metres from the house. If the family can afford it, iron sheets are often used for roofing instead of spear grass or banana leaves. This is usually used for the main house.