CALA land director Andrew Aldridge is back in his office at the company’s regional HQ in Wooburn Green after a week in Guatemala helping to provide basic living standards for the poorest families living in primitive conditions surrounding the city of Solola.

The time he spent in the country on the southern tip of Mexico was in marked contrast to his day job buying sites for luxury houses with state of the art kitchens, two or three bathrooms and reception rooms the size of shacks that are home to families of four or five in the poverty stricken regions of central America.

Andrew’s latest expedition was inspired by a similar one to Cambodia two years ago organised by the charity Habitat for Humanity.

He was the only one from the developer’s Chiltern region in a small party from CALA among 250 volunteers who built 29 sturdy homes in the space of a week for villagers existing in make-shift shelters built on stilts to protect them from being washed away by floods in the rainy season.

When he got back, Andrew described the experience as life changing. He said: “I consider myself to be relatively well travelled but getting under the skin of the country and being exposed to the level of deprivation was truly humbling.

“In Cambodia our team of ten completed the construction of a home for a young family. The father worked shoulder to shoulder with us to build it.

“Up until then, he and his wife and two children had lived in a tin shack with no running water, electricity, sanitation and a dirt floor. That moment will never leave me.

“The reward for doing something so immediately tangible in terms of benefits will be up there as one of the most profound moments in my life.”

Following the thought provoking trip to Cambodia, the family man from Bucks decided to put his knowledge of housebuilding to wider use in a global sense.

Since his return he has qualified as a team leader for future expeditions although not soon enough for his latest trip.

For the mission to Guatemala organised by Habitat for Humanity he was second in command of a group of 19 from the Residential Development Agents Society. The working party included volunteers from Knight Frank, Savills, Jones Laing Lasalle and Croudace as well as CALA.

Like each volunteer, Andrew had to raise almost £2,000 to earn his keep. “Part of my funds came from selling space on my hard hat for company logos,” he laughs.

“In the end I raised just over £3,000. Some of the money pays for board and lodging while you’re there and transportation from region to region but most of it is a donation to fund the work of the charity.

“Each volunteer pays for their own flights, that’s on top of the mandatory £1,950 for a place in the group.”

The main reason for this year’s trip to Guatemala was to improve and repair many of the places where locals live in deprived regions of Solala.

Respiratory diseases are rife in slum areas due to lack of ventilation in hovels where families have no choice other than to cook on an open fire.

To counteract that, the charity provide what they call Healthy Home Kits. The kits included moulds which are distributed to the locals to make the bricks for the ovens which were built by the volunteers using other parts of the kit to make the stove.

Andrew told the Free Press: “Each oven took half a day to build. We built two a day. The stoves are designed on the principle of a very basic wood fired Aga. They don’t cause health problems and they’re energy efficient.

“They use half as much wood as cooking on an open fire and since villagers have to buy the wood they burn out of their earnings of three dollars a day, everyone’s a winner.”

By the end of the week, thanks to the work of the 19 volunteers from RDAS, living standards had been improved for 16 families and £60,000 had been added to the kitty to enable the charity to reach out to areas that so far have escaped the humanitarian safety net.

Back at base camp in Bucks, while Andrew had been preparing for his trip to Guatemala, two of his colleagues at  CALA’s HQ in Wooburn Green - Andy Pennell, director of affordable housing and technical manager Paul Carter -  were getting ready for this year’s follow-up trip to Cambodia from which they’ve now returned.

At the same time, in the spirit of charity begins at home, each year all regions of the company invite the communities in which they operate in the UK to put in a bid for funds for worthwhile local good causes. 

The money comes from an annual bursary provided by the housebuilder.

The company was  founded in 1875 as the City of Aberdeen Land Association, hence the acronyms which account for the name traditionally spelt in capitals.

As for Andrew Aldridge, he’s already looking forward to being team leader on a mission next year to one of more than 80 countries where Habitat for Humanity hopes to make a difference by giving each family in any country in the world a decent place to live, even if it’s only a humble hereditament.