Kerala’s Mohammad Rafi Builds Homes For The Poor

Kerala: Meet Mohammad Rafi (40). No. Not a singer but a small small-time marble and granite seller and a builder—for the poor and needy, from Kasargod, Kerala.

Vatis Rafi as he is popularly known among his friends circle has already built three homes of more than 700 sq ft for homeless people and ensures that these are modern homes with at least two bedrooms, hall and kitchen in these houses. Not only are they functional, but they are also aesthetically built and all designed by him. And the irony is that he himself lives in a small home with his wife Fathima and their three sons in Paduppu.

Rafi, a Grade 4 school dropout has spent more than Rs 25 lakhs on these houses and has found different ways of keeping construction costs down. A firm believer in recycling, he picks up doors and windows from places where people are demolishing their old homes and asks them to donate those while explaining his cause.

The other method is through crowd sourcing - not the online way but through his professional network of friends and customers who have brought marble from him. They generously donate cement and other materials to him knowing his noble intention. But he has made it clear never to ask for money as he finds it a headache to handle money and not many people are willing to give cash. Till date, he has never been denied what he asked for, that is because he also keeps the requirements minimal based on the donor.

Rafi has never taken credit for his work neither takes photographs of his beneficiaries because he knows that it is a collective effort from all the people he has taken from and it would be taking undue advantage to take all the credit for it, he says.

The target for 2019 is to build two more houses for the needy and hopes he would be able to achieve it, he concludes.

PS: This article first appeared in Indian Express.