Habitat for Humanity's commitment to safeguarding
Habitat for Humanity’s commitment to safeguarding
Habitat for Humanity International has zero tolerance for exploitative, inappropriate or unfair treatment of those we serve or work alongside. We recognize that building and sustaining a safe organization requires a commitment to children, families who partner with Habitat, community members, partners and our colleagues.
Our commitment
Our commitment to preventing sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment is unwavering. For us, safeguarding is not an end state but rather an ongoing process — one of humility as we continue to improve, one of courage as we raise our voices to protect ourselves and others, and one of accountability as we maintain the trust of the communities where we work.
Our Child and Adult Safeguarding Policy reflects our pledge to create and maintain a work and life environment that is safe, productive and respectful for the children and adults we serve.
As a Christian organization rooted in undoing systemic oppression and promoting housing equity, we believe that every child and adult with whom we have contact, whether intentional or incidental, has the right to be protected from any harm that can arise during our operations or project activities.
Continuous improvement
We have worked hard to improve our safeguarding systems. Even so, we know we must remain vigilant and continue to strengthen our training programs and screening of employees and volunteers.
That commitment to continuous improvement led us to renew our safeguarding policy in 2024, strengthening our child safeguarding considerations while also creating an overarching safeguarding framework that connects all related policies and aligns with sector best practices — providing a way to further mainstream safeguarding in all we do.
We have expanded our team of safeguarding specialists globally, regionally and locally — developing a network of safeguarding focal points and officers across our operations.
We have ramped up and professionalized our training for our employees, volunteers and our partners. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to do more work remotely, for example, we established trainings for safeguarding related to engagement of volunteers virtually.
We have collaborated with peer organizations to create the Safeguarding Community Visualization Toolkit, an adaptable set of resources designed to communicate key safeguarding messages to the communities in which we or our partners work, helping to break down barriers of language, literacy and accessibility. You can view our “What is Safeguarding” video which, together with other short videos available in multiple languages, was developed using the graphic resources from the Safeguarding Community Visualization Toolkit.
We continue to participate in different safeguarding events and communities of practices in the different regions where we work.
Promoting a “speak-up” culture
Employees, child and adult members of the communities where we work, volunteers and partners are encouraged to report incidents of exploitation, abuse or harassment, including through our confidential reporting system, the Habitat Ethics and Accountability Line. Any staff member who files a report or is a witness providing information related to such a report is protected against retaliation.
We can only address and stop safeguarding violations if we all are committed to being a part of the solution. View our safeguarding orientation video in English or with Spanish subtitles to learn more about what safeguarding is, how to recognize safeguarding violations and how to report them.