Okay we just found out something so epic, that we just had to share with you! Imagine having your house built for free! We would never think to find something like this here in Malaysia but guess what? There is!
We have talked about the future of real estate industry and how it would be affected but we all keep forgetting that despite the tech changes and transformations going on in the world today, there will still be a certain number of population that raise their families in very poor conditions having an improvised or no roof at all above their heads. Well our team has discovered a brilliant enterprise that has a genius approach to solving this ever-present problem.
Ladies & Gentlemen, and all those in between, (imagine the sound of the drum roll in the background) we present to you EPIC Homes!
Epic Homes is a social enterprise that builds houses for the underprivileged Malaysian communities and they literally do it in 3 days and for free! EPIC stands for Extraordinary People Impacting Community and the emphasis of their business model is to create healthy and natural relationship between the urban and rural communities by involving everybody in a socially responsible activities such as home building for poor and underprivileged. Below we will show you a short documentary about what these people do and the way they affect lives.
Just as Roomz.asia wants to make sure our users find the right home for themselves, Epic Homes does the same but in a bit different way. When it comes to urban areas in Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Penang and such, Roomz.asia is an expert in providing perfect and affordable rooms for rent. Being a room rental platform that extensively relies on internet and data connection as well as on highly populated areas our service may not be as useful in rural areas which is quite logical since a rental demand is much lower in this particular environment. Rural areas have some other accomodation issues, often of more existential nature. This is where Epic Homes comes in picture. We will now simplify the brilliant strategy they use for you to get the better idea of the whole home building process.
The first step is identifying the family that needs help. Home building activities are mostly focused on rural areas and Orang Asli (Malaysia’s indigenous population) communities. Family is chosen with a help of a third party that can be an ngo, village head, government or any other entity that is somehow familiar and/or connected with the family’s situation. They are based on criteria list for eligibility so once the family is verified, EPIC homes assign a Master builder, a person who will bring the local community together in order to help to the chosen family in any way, be it financial, physical and such. Master builders also consults the family about their needs and future home. At the same time funds are being raised through donations, crowd funding, partners and sponsors. At this point corporate entities have an opportunity to become more actively involved as a part of their own CSR contribution. The next step is gathering the already experienced builders and training the new ones who usually come as volunteers from urban areas, local community or even from another countries in order to help build a home for a chosen family in need. The building process lasts for 3 days and it’s filled with fun, joy and teambuilding sessions. Once the project is completed, the family is ready to move in and Epic Home team makes sure to keep in touch with them to make sure everything is okay in the future.
Epic home also implements the interesting ‘pay it forward’ philosophy where they give the opportunity to all the families with the newly built homes to contribute with their voluntary work to another family by helping to build their future houses. A kind of mindset we fully support. Here is one more fun video where you can see the amount of fun people have while helping out other people.
There are plenty of ways to join or support EPIC Rooms as a builder, funder, or sponsor. So if you feel like you might be of any use to this super-duper-awesome enterprise, please do not hesitate but get in touch with them and see how you can contribute.
Type you soon!
