Sheltering With Compassion

The Tarayana Foundation’s Housing Improvement flagship program devised for an inclusive, and vibrant community development aims to reduce vulnerability in rural isolated pockets of Bhutan. The program targets vulnerable families with critical housing conditions (such as living in thatched huts), along with a lack of resources and skills to curb their housing plights. Housing is a basic human need and a fundamental right that every individual and family is entitled to. Proper comfortable housing is considered vital for psychological as well as physical wellbeing being an economic asset that every individual regardless of their financial
and social status aspires to own.

Tarayana Foundation is dedicated and determined to provide all exacerbated families/individuals with housing support as a person/family spends a huge chunk of their time there and links to the majority of the social issues.

Since 2003, the Foundation has facilitated the construction of countless houses and toilets in Bhutan with support from numerous benevolent donors and stakeholders. In 2018, the foundation aided an old couple, Memey Kuwala, and Abi Lapchang from Kilung Village in Lhuentse district by constructing a house with support from a monastery. The old couple did not own any land or house and lived in a hut till 2017. The couple now lives a happy and content life in the vicinity of the monastery that sanctioned the construction of their new house.

In 2019, Mrs. Tsechi Zangmo’s family from Duringri, Pema Gatshel was one of the recipients of the housing aid that enable her family to move from a small bamboo hut with banana leaf roofing into a comfortable concrete house. While in conversations with the beneficiaries, they express immense gratitude to the foundation, the donors, and the Tsa-Wa-Sum for the alleviation of their housing issues that cascade into numerous social, and economic issues such as being unable to participate in agricultural and community activities. These families live with dignity and hope to participate in nation-building by being happy productive citizens.

“I am very grateful for the generous help from the Foundation and donors for providing me with housing and necessary skills. With a roof over my head and four stable walls protecting my family, I feel a boost in self-esteem, confidence as well as personal hygiene.

Now, I can focus on income-generating activities instead of worrying about my housing problems.” – Rinchen Wangmo, Trong, Zhemgang – 2020 Housing Improvement Programme Benefactor In 2021, out of 250 entries Tarayana Foundation’s Housing Improvement Programme’s Integrated Development Model for Poverty Reduction received the Silver Award at the World Habitat Awards, a recognition that motivated individuals of all levels associated with the program.

World Habitat Awards is the world’s leading housing award organized by World Habitat in partnership with UN-Habitat. The program aligned with international and national developmental goals of Sustainable Development Goals and National Key Results Areas.