Social House Building

We have more than 40 years of experience in social housing. We evaluate the physical, economical and social situation and from there we propose sustainable solutions. We look for locally available materials and skills and where needed we propose the production of materials and the training of skills.

In the las 45 years, we have contributed to the construction of thousands of houses all over Latin America and Africa, with technologies ranging from adobe and bamboo all the way to on-site concrete prefabrication.

Disaster response and prevention

Based on decades of experience in disaster reconstruction we propose solutions to produce on site solid and durable emergency shelters within days or weeks of the catastrophe.

We focus on combining disaster reconstruction with preparation for the mitigation of the nex disaster wich often is expected to happen.

We provide fully equipped workshops, and our specialists ensure full knowhow transfer to local teams with the goal of establishing technologies and workshops that will perform in a truly sustainable way (ecologically, economically, socially) and providing permanent livelihoods.

In the past four decades grupo sofonias has participated in building more than 10,000 houses/shelters after natural catastrophes all over the world.

Dual Education

In most countries in the southern hemisphere, there is a lack of vacational training and thus of a qualified workforce. This is reflected in the quality of the buildings and is one of the reasons for the major damage caused by natural disasters.

Those who cannot afford a university will be left behind.  Apart from that, as is well known, you cannot learn any trades at the university- there is no training system as we know it.

Dual education is a key to sustainability in social construction.  Our goal is to integrate youn professionals and tradesmen into an educational process in the management of development projects.  Our programs combine house building with solid theoritecal education in programs for masons, so far implemented in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Ecuador.