Antigua and Barbuda handover 10 homes to beneficiaries under EU-funded Housing Support project

Antigua and Barbuda: In order to promote resilience, the European Union financially assisted the Housing Support project of the Government of Antigua and Barbuda as part of the post-Hurricane Irma recovery efforts. 

On Wednesday, June 29, 2022, the government handover ten additional keys to the newly rehabilitated homes under Phase 2 of the Housing project to the beneficiaries. 

The ten homes are part of the 84 homes that were provided in the final stage of the €5 million-euro Project. The aim of the project was to repair and rebuild homes that were devastated by Hurricane Irma in September 2017, due to which around 104 houses are being refurbished or rebuilt.

Further, while speaking on behalf of the European Union, Ambassador Malgorzata Wasilewska noted, “The European Union engagement with the region remains strong to provide shelters to the people who have lost them due to the natural calamities. The country is also rebuilding strong houses as a way to add on to the resilience that the region has always shown.”

Antigua and Barbuda witnessed huge destruction due to Hurricane Irma, as 95 percent of the buildings damaged on the island that are being classified as uninhabitable directly after the hurricane. 

This is because of the European Union that the life of Antigua and Barbuda has been booming for five years. 

The new homes of Antigua and Barbuda are not the only component of resilience building, and in addition to the handing over of keys and in collaboration with the Department of the Environment, over one hundred fruit trees were distributed to the beneficiaries under the greening component of the Project. The environment is severely impacted by these severe weather systems, and trees are not immune; actually, in recent years, more tree cover has been impacted by the storms.