By Daniela Grijalva
Currently, many of the traditional homes in rural southern Ecuador are constructed of adobe block, which crumbles easily without proper cementation and insulation. The resulting cracks and faults create roofs and rooflines with many gaps that allow kissing bugs to enter the home easily and hide until their victims are soundly asleep inside. The lack of windows and lighting that accompany these older adobe structures lead to long periods of darkness, which makes catching kissing bugs even harder.
By Daniela Grijalva
Houses, or Homes?
Most people would agree that every human in this day and age has the right to a home, but the concept of home is often generalized across development spaces, literature, and individual thought processes quite differently. Is a home the physical space where one sleeps at night? Or maybe the area that houses any worldly possessions you’ve picked up along your way? The address where your mail is delivered? The location where you felt the greatest sense of love, or belonging?
By Daniela Grijalva
Our strategy for preventing Chagas disease and building health recognizes local capacities for identifying and solving problems and is dependent upon achieving a shared sense of ownership over all of our projects. We are facilitating lines of action that generate the knowledge, skills, sense of self, and collective-efficacy required at the community level to create and sustain living environments that deter Chagas disease and support well-being. We have developed the following components under the initiative:
• Improved housing,
• Promotion of healthy living practices, and
• Sustainable increases in income generation.