Dutch visitors bring homely hope to rural area

Home Plan has made history in the small town of Pomeroy.
The Dutch-based company, which is also part of the Roman Catholic Church, has built a total of 140 houses in Pomeroy and 4 000 worldwide.
The 4 000th house was built in Pomeroy last week. Baxolile Ngidi, the lucky person to receive the history-making home, could not control her emotions when she was handed the keys to the home. “I am overwhelmed by Home Plan and I cannot believe that I am now a homeowner. My kids and I will be able to live comfortably come rain or shine,” said Baxolile, with tears of joy streaming down her face. “I’m thankful to uMusa woMsinga for the Jojo tank that they donated to us as well, as water is very scarce in our area.”
Chairperson of Home Plan, Aimé de Bock, flew down from the Netherlands for the historic handover as well. Home Plan is a non governmental organisation which relies solely on sponsorships they received from the people back in Holland.

“We build houses for the needy all over the world. We’ve built homes in Mexico, Zimbabwe, and South Africa and our organisation work closely with uMusa woMsinga, who select those who are most deserving. Our volunteers then come down and stay in the country for a week and help build the houses,” he said. “The first house we built was in the Wasbank area,” he added.
For the Pomeroy project, Mr de Bock came with 10 volunteers, some of whom were sponsors of the project.
“The reason we come down and help build the houses ourselves is so that the sponsors can experience first-hand how people in these areas live and the difficulties they face. We then take that information back to Holland and are able to show potential sponsors the videos and give them feedback on the work we have done.