The Durable Home Network.

Hamidu Ssonko,  is a social entrepreneur  and a waste reduction innovator with interest in social solutions that address challenges of our time. He grew up in a humble family background of 8 children, for which access to basic essential needs of life, such as improved housing, education and clean water was difficult that  propelled him to harness an insatiable desire to promote positive  change in  his community.
He is passionate about improving the quality of life of rural dwellers in  susceptible communities of Sub-Saharan Africa by  developing sustainable decent sheltered eco homes on credit in highest need of housing improvement.  He is the Founder of Biha Eco Venture a recycling  social enterprise  that wastes to make various products with an intention of solving social needs. He is a 2019 Alumni of   Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) at Regional  Centre in Nairobi and Young and Emerging Leaders Project Fellow of 2019.

Over  80 million households  in 7 countries of  rural Sub Saharan Africa completly face an uphill task  of accessing decent shelter because they  lack low cost building projects (International Centre for Science and High Technology (ICS), 2017). About 75% of the housing stock in Uganda is constructed of local materials that are temporary in nature,unprocessed and non- standardised (UN-Habitat, 2015). 

Biha Eco Venture changes that through our proposed program, The "Durable Home Network " we are  working to alleviate and uplift communities by providing  low cost durable building materials on credit distributed among low income households to enrich home improvement and housing poverty, by delivering  a complete bundle of services, financing for eco friendly cheap building materials,delivery, installation and technical support. These intervention help rural families significantly to improve their homes, healthy and living standards  enabling families to begin paths to prosperity. 
   

Over 2billion households in Sub saharan African leave in poor homes(Africa Bank) because they are unable to access affordable building materials to improve their homes and consequences are severe. This is more widely experienced among low-income earners who find it costly to develop housing using contemporary building materials that are often imported or transported long distances from the manufacturer to sites of construction. With limited options, low-income earners often resort to locally available materials for house construction.

About 90% of the rural population in Uganda only 2% household can afford building materials to improve their homes from exposure to hygienic threats.

Rapid population growth , poor state of the national economy, constrained access to appropriate and affordable building design and materials, limited access to land, inappropriate building by-laws, standards and regulations have had the effect of concentrating low-income earners in poor housing conditions that lack planning and servicing (UBOS, 2015).  This therefore necessities needs of improved local building materials and their standardisation as a way of improving their potential use in the development of housing in the country. 

Through using  waste processing technology, Biha Eco Venture rethinks, redefine and  develops  low cost building materials for low income households distributed on credit to enrich housing poverty in needy areas. We thus came up with a concept to bring recycled building materials from wastes contributing to contemporary building  industry  and decent sheltered homes in developing population by creating alternative tiles and green roof panels.
We created a niche with poultry eggshell spiced concrete products to get vulnerable rural families walking on eggshells and using alternative building products. Through Durable Home  Network, we want to create a Network of rural dwellers accessing and financing low cost building materials to enrich housing poverty.

We want to reach the Africa's lowest income households living in rural susceptible areas.  Our average targeted groups are female and male aged between 20- 50, and these households 90% are famers  with poor housing shelter while predominantly engaged in small scale economic activities which include irrigation farming,growing staple crops and poultry. Our customers are registered in village savings loan groups and can save between $100- $200 monthly which are potential source for income generation to manage payment of the products on agreed  period.
We provide our services using a pay -as- you go approach with a user friendly repayment saving mechanism. This system enables households to save money for an improved shelter. Our program is executed by our Build Better- Live Better field officers and technically supported local builders and engineers. Households make  a group of 5 to 10 for collective repayment and home improvement. The project reinforces local social capital,involvement and empowerment of local women  organizations and their leadership.

Homes who join our program typically see a 40-45% increase in their income including other products support. Households enrich housing poverty and hygienic threats such jigger infestation that lead to social exclusion, poverty and sometimes death.

We are addressing challenges faced by vulnerable households in lowest income population of  Sub Saharan Africa characterized with non standardised homes. Biha Eco Venture we address housing poverty and bridge a gap of access to low cost building materials. We unlock three immediate outcomes for lowest income household; access to affordable products,  credit potential and housing poverty to improve their homes and communities by delivering a proven service bundle which improves health, homes standards and save household income.

I grow up in a humble family background in rural parts of western Uganda and access to decent housing shelter was difficult. This gave me a unique insight to promote positive change in my community. At the age of 17, I conceptualised a project in recycling that provided recycled cooking products out of local poultry eggshells. This therefore unlocked my entrepreneurial talent and knowledge in waste reduction and contemporary rural and sustainable community development. Due to impact of my work and ensuring circular economy, My project was crown with an environmentalist by the Pollination Project of California in 2015. 

However, too many people are still struggling for the most basic needs, I therefore create a niche of providing recycled building materials as an alternative to improve housing conditions with in  rural areas  that are generally   characterized with dmdusty floors and non standardised building materials.

Today, my project has grown into social  enterprise that aspire to empower most disadvantaged communities using alternative enablers to adjust social economic shocks through rethinking and redirecting use of eco friendly solutions.

Every second of every minute and every minute of every hour, a poor home is constructed using temporary local materials in the growing population of Sub Saharan Africa, such homes are prone to hygienic threats and susceptible  to rot, termite attack and fire. However, in rural parts vegetation used as   local material in housing is steadily disappearing due to other human activities , including depletion of forest cover.

Uganda is listed among the seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are in need of low cost building projects (International Centre for Science and High Technology ( ICS), 2017).

In Growing up in rural needy community explains why  I propelled an insatiable desire to promote access to  improved and  decent shelter, there is a need to reduce the house development costs through the use of improved local building materials.  Biha Eco Venture, work towards environmental sustainability  and maintain rigorous in rural house quality assurance system.

We deeply care about the ecosystem and humanity lives within it.Using the power of recycling and our ingenuity, we actively rethink and redefine solutions to address problems in the waste stream to better community.

Being born in the humble family background of a peasant farmer makes me a humble man by default and a team member by upbringing which answers of me fitting into new teams. 

I practically learnt and acquired experience in the scope of sustainable community development and contemporary rural and urban innovation systems analysis, Learning and knowledge brokerage in; waste value addition and social-economic development. Today my business has turned into a big waste reduction social enterprise that provides ecofriendly products with both health and environmental benefits recycled from poultry eggshells as an enabler. I  also have 6 of experience working with community and hold a degree in Arts and Community Development.

In 2018 I was a team leader in a group of three and we were contracted to design a project for the community of providing alternative charcoal a solution which didn’t consider people to know their preferences and It was launched based on individual perspectives, however in a long run the project didn’t have effective results because people wanted to be trained instead of buying. This mistake helped me to learn and develop a clear sense of purpose as a leader to consider other people when providing a social solution. I learnt that for sustainability and better future opportunities one must understand personal behaviors of different people to understand their perspective and working as a team breeds inclusive solutions that results to effective work. In my current work before solving any  problem I remind myself  to consider all stakeholders to have the best way of solving a problem.

Nothing sends a bad signal about where you live or who you are, like  poor practices with health risks and  harmfull to the environment. When I look around me, I see efforts of reviving the image of my continent Africa. 
I  took time to reflect and I ask myself what role I have to play in all these and my answer is always conserving the environment around me and providing solutions to social problems effecting communities. My community use traditional cooking energy, can't afford cheap building materials to curb a problem of jiggers. The affected group is the low income earners  who are susceptible to these challenges
This later unlocked my entrepreneurial talent and explains why my venture looks

 at developing low cost building materials distributed on credit  to enrich housing poverty am vulnerable through waste recycling as an enabler.