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Yesterday, eleven homes were handed over to Villagers from the Stann Creek District who’d lost mostly everything in the devastating floods of June 2008. Among them is Mark Ritchie. He’s the father and husband who lost his wife Shelda, his 14 year old daughter Eleanor, and his 11 year old son Mark Jr. Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Emergency Management, George Lovell handed over eleven keys to Ritchie and ten other new homeowners yesterday.

Col. George Lovell,
“It took us some seven or so months to complete the homes and I am proud to deliver these homes to the families today. We’re currently at the Mark Ritchie residence. This is where Mark Ritchie unfortunately during that unfortunate flood victim lost his entire family and his house and we have constructed a new 20 by 24 concrete wood structure for him that you see in the background and that particular home you will note from some of the footage that we took has two bedrooms and a bathroom. It is completely wired up so all the electrical work has been done. We have plumbing and it also has its own sewer system and it always has a kitchen that has its own sink in it. These homes have been built to withstand the elements of a similar type event, a flooding event. So you will note that we built them to mitigate against that type of event. Where we are standing right here is the location where Mark Ritchie had his house before and if you note, the new home or the new house is built at a higher location and it is even elevated off the ground and it is built from concrete. So hopefully if there is another flood event God forbid, he shouldn’t suffer the same experiences. The homes in the Hope Creek area, again we relocated those people from that flood prone area that was in the Melinda Forest Station area and put them over to the Hope Creek area. It is higher ground, we also as part of the entire project erected some drains which clearly will mitigate against any flooding event in that particular community. And so while we construct these homes and people will have no obligations to pay back government anything, we decide to build better and to build to mitigate against the elements.”

Funds for the construction came from the Government of Belize with support form the Algerian, Canadian and United States Governments. The homes are 20 X 24 two bedroom concrete dwellings fitted with windows, doors, kitchen, bathrooms fixtures, electrical inputs and water pipes. They also got a certificate which will enable them to get electricity Eight homes were constructed in Hope Creek, two in Pomona Valley and one within the Stann Creek Valley area.