subject: HOV helps build Habitat for Humanity home [print this page] HOV helps build Habitat for Humanity home
Hospice of the Valley physicians, nurses and administrators will help build a home for a Habitat for Humanity family from Africa on Nov. 7 in south Phoenix.
This will be the first house for Sadiki Ikyebwe, 36, and Binwa Shadrack, 31, who currently live in a small apartment with her mother, the couple's three children and a nephew.
Ikeyebwe fled war-torn Congo in 1996 and lived as a refugee in Tanzania. The following year, he married Shadrack. Their family received U.S. permission to immigrate to Phoenix in 2004. In mid-October, he became a U.S. citizen. The couple work as caregivers at a group home for the mentally ill.
"The new house will be comfortable for us," Ikyebwe said. "It will have four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths. We will have a yard and a place for the kids to play and put their bikes and toys. This is wonderful."
This is the second year Hospice of the Valley managers have participated in a Habitat build. "It's a good team-building exercise and helps a deserving family," said Gregory Mayer, M.D., executive medical director.
Ikyebwe is grateful to Habitat volunteers for assisting his family. "My family and I are very happy to see people coming to help us," he said. "Those people love us. We don't have anything to pay them back only God can pay them."
Habitat for Humanity is an international, nonprofit agency that strives to eliminate poverty housing. Since its founding in 1976, Habitat for Humanity is responsible for building more than 225,000 houses in 100 countries.
Hospice of the Valley is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1977 to serve people with life-limiting illnesses and their families in Maricopa County. It is the largest not-for-profit hospice in the nation, caring for about 3,000 patients a day.
