From shortage to crisis

Residents of Villa Centenario built their own houses and now meet regularly to discuss ways of improving living conditions in their community.

This presented a major challenge to the government and citizens alike: to rebuild not just houses, but entire communities that would be stronger and healthier than those destroyed.

"It was an opportunity to rethink rural housing and rural communities and to introduce a new concept of healthy living even in the context of poverty," says Horacio Toro, PAHO representative in El Salvador. "It was a chance to come up with solutions to enduring problems like the lack of basic sanitary services and the unhealthy human behaviors that accompany poverty and poor living conditions."

The task of developing a prototype of healthy housing was taken up by a group of sanitary engineers in PAHO’s country office in San Salvador. PAHO helped secure funding from donors including the Bahamas, Canada, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the Pan American Health and Education Foundation to finance the first 60 houses, while the Marist Brothers religious order raised funds to finance the remaining 40. The goal was to make Villa Centenario a model that shows it is possible to have healthy housing and healthy communities even in the poorest rural zones.

The core of Villa Centenario is its 100 houses, built to withstand earthquakes and also to ensure healthy living in a low-income setting. Designed by PAHO sanitary engineers as a prototype of antiseismic, low-cost and easy-to-construct housing, each home was built by future residents themselves using simple tools and durable materials such as concrete blocks and metal roofing. Each house has three small bedrooms, a kitchen and a social area, all in a space of 440 square feet. Conveniences include a water storage tank and purification filters, a shower, a kitchen-laundry sink, a wood-burning or gas stove, a latrine and a system for eliminating wastewater. Fine mesh screening covers the doors and windows to keep out disease-carrying insects. The total cost of materials: just over $4,000.

Today, less than two years after construction began, Villa Centenario has, besides its 100 homes, a community center, a central plaza, a park with a playground, a sports field, a medical dispensary, a bakery and a nixtamal, or corn tortilla, mill. Children attend school just a kilometer from town, and the Municipality of Acajutla provides the community with garbage collection. Recently the community finally got its own electricity and water services.

The focus on healthy housing (vivienda saludable, or VIVISAL, in Spanish) is critical, but the emphasis on social participation is equally important. The country’s president, Francisco Flores, highlighted this fact in a speech delivered at the community’s inauguration: "It’s worth noting that the community’s design also takes account of the kind of social spaces needed to stimulate harmonious coexistence among the residents, with special emphasis on the spatial needs of children and adolescents."

For Francisco López Beltrán, El Salvador’s minister of health, Villa Centenario represents "the new approach that ministries of health are taking, bringing programs to the communities and making Salvadorans the true protagonists of health."

Toward that end, Villa Centenario has an elected city council, volunteer health and sanitation brigades, community training programs, several income-producing projects and community nutrition initiatives supported by PAHO’s Nutrition Institute of Central America and Panama, or INCAP. A number of government and international agencies and nongovernmental organizations have helped organize community campaigns for mosquito control, childhood immunization, animal worming, vitamin supplementation and adult literacy.

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