Gulliver Prep senior David Herrera is the school’s Silver Knight nominee in the science category. Silver Knight nominees all have strong commitment to community service and Herrera is no exception. Herrera spends school breaks building homes for the poor in Latin America.
He is a volunteer with TECHO, an organization that funds and builds transitional homes throughout Latin America.
“I’ve been five times to four different countries,” he says.
Those counties include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Colombia (twice) and El Salvador.
Herrera learned about Techo from a friend and decided to go along.
“Once I arrived, it was an incredible experience,” he says.
He usually goes on the trips during school breaks.
“We went on one during Thanksgiving break,” he says. “And in April we’re going on another one.”
He even went on a quick trip during a regular weekend.
“The houses are very elementary,” he says. “We do not install any plumbing or lighting. They are rustic, more like emergency shelters that we can put together in two days. But they are much better than the current houses that the residents live in that are made of mud and metal sheets. To build them, we often use wood or water proof dry wall materials for the walls and zinc sheets for the roof.”
At each construction site, they usually work on two to three houses at a time, depending on how many workers are in the group. Prior to each trip, they raise money for the homes.
“Right now, we are in the process of collecting for the next trip,” he says. “We collect from families and other organizations. And we are trying to do fundraisers like car washes.”
They need to raise $2,500 to $3,500 per house, depending on the country in which they build.
“Last trip we raised 7,500 to build three houses,” Herrera says.
Techo has a main office in each country they serve. The offices are run by full-time volunteers who run surveys to choose the candidates for a new home.
“As an organization, TECHO puts up 90 percent of what the house costs,” he says. “The family puts in the remaining 10 percent. So, they have a sense of ownership.”
When building the structures, the TECHO teams don’t use levels to make sure the walls or floor are straight.
“We do a lot of that with hoses and water,” he says. “We use basic physics principles. We build these houses on a foundation of pylons, much like the houses in Stiltsville. When you hold a hose with water up by both ends, the water will always be level due to gravity and pressure, and we use that to make sure that the pylons (and the house) will be a level structure regardless of the terrain.”
Going on the trips has opened his eyes to how most people live and work.
“We sleep in public schools in the communities where we build,” he says. “While at these schools, we learn a lot about the struggles that the people in these communities endure. We experience how they live every day.”
Next year, Herrera will be away at college but he hopes to be able to continue to help as much as he can.
“In college, I plan on doing research, to see what building materials I can produce that are more rigid, lighter, and more cost effective for the structure of the houses,” he says.
He plans to attend Northwestern University and major in civil engineering.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
