Inadequate housing is more than just a deficit—it’s a barrier to safety, health, andeconomic progress, trapping countless families in a relentless cycle of poverty with higher exposure to violence and limited future perspectives for their children. The Hilti Foundation is on a mission to break this cycle through innovative technologies, sustainable building practices, and through working on solutions to solve the problem holistically.

In Peru, a safe home is a distant dream for many families facing the dual threats of environmental risks and a severe lack of skilled labor. An alarming 80% of constructions are informally built, leaving half of them vulnerable to earthquakes. This shocking reality demands urgent action.

After her visits to Peru as part of the Viviendas Progresivas (VIPRO) project, Melinda Sasfi, Project Manager at Hilti Foundation, observed that houses are built haphazardly, and quality is not a focus. As a result, people build without professional supervision and much of what is built is simply poor construction. At the same time, the government has no plan to solve the problem. In addition to the poor quality of construction, there is another challenge: cost.

Imagine knowing from a very young age that music is your life. You dream of becoming a professional musician and enchanting audiences on the world’s leading stages. But there’s a catch: You live in one of Lima’s poorest neighborhoods, where money is scarce, and opportunities are few. This is the story of Athzel, a young Peruvian,

The objective in our focus area, Music for Social Change, is to empower young people through music to make conscious choices for life. We are concentrating on three initiatives: supporting grassroot programs, building bridges between music programs and the established music world, and the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM).

The Affordable Housing & Technology focus area is about changing the way low-income families build and live. Here, our work is based on three initiatives: spreading bamboo construction, creating an inclusive housing industry, and building coalitions of impact.

Affordable Housing & Technology is one of the Hilti Foundation's focus areas. That involves more than the well-known Cement Bamboo Frame Technology, which provides safe and sustainable homes for families in need. The Foundation also supports the development and implementation of other solutions to improve the way families live and build.

Salzburg – Gstaad – Lucerne. These are the places where the Youth Orchestra Sinfonía por el Perú will give concerts during the last days of August and the first days of September. They will perform together with the world-famous tenor Juan Diego Flórez, who founded the social music program in Peru in 2011, and the Spanish conductor Roberto González-Monjas.

As a global phenomenon, the housing situation of the poor is dramatic: An estimated 1.6 billion people live in substandard housing, and this number will almost double until 2030. Most of them will end up in so-called informal settlements, starting to build by themselves. In Lima, Peru, like in many other regions of the world, housing construction is a long-lasting process, not a purchase. For low-income families in particular, construction costs are often more critical than quality, which impacts the families’ safety and health.

To travel abroad and perform at major international festivals is the dream of many young musicians. This dream is now becoming reality for the Youth Orchestra of Sinfonía por el Perú, which is touring Europe for the first time with its founder, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez.

July is a member of the National Youth Choir in Sinfonía por el Perú. For her, being part of the program has opened a completely new world. Not only did she discover a talent she didn’t know she had, but she has also found her favorite way to express herself and her feelings through music.

In 2011, together with its long-standing partner organization Swisscontact, the Hilti Foundation launched Construya, a qualification program for the informal construction sector in Colombia. Construya has developed training modules, in cooperation with state vocational training institutions, that teach better construction practices for the informal sector.

Due to the pandemic, many programs in the field of music for social change had to adapt their ways of collaboration.

Ten years ago, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez founded the social music programme"Sinfonía por el Perú". Based on the basic idea of the Venezuelan programme "El Sistema", music schools, so-called "Núcleos" were established in the hotspot neighbourhoods of Lima, and soon in the most vulnerable regions of the whole country.

Jahan’s schedule is always busy. He dreams of an international education and a career as an orchestra musician and teacher. A comprehensive, internationally networked music program, supported by the Hilti Foundation, makes this possible.