Fuller also stressed that the Global Village did not divert funds from the group's house-building work, because all the money came from donations earmarked for the park. He added that the park would ultimately raise money and attract volunteers to the organization's main activities. He likened the costs to money spent on direct mail solicitations. "If this proves to be a huge success, we might replicate it elsewhere," he said.
Construction costs on the park, built on donated land near the organization's headquarters, are about US$1.3 million so far and are expected to reach US$5 million. The opening coincides with the start of a weeklong Habitat for Humanity program to build 92 houses in three poor communities in the region.
The biggest obstacle in building the park, Fuller said, was that builders kept making the slum area too attractive. "We'd say, `you're making it look too nice,'" he said. "`Look at the photo again.'"
Scott Bender, who designed most of the poverty village, said he had never visited its equivalents overseas, but relied on photographs and television images.
The idea for the Global Village stemmed from a group of five model homes the the organization maintained in town to show visitors to its headquarters. Last year, about 12,000 people visited the offices and toured the model houses. "That's just rinky-dink," Fuller said of the five houses. "It made me realize that if we could have more extensive experience, we could give people more of an understanding of the miserable conditions in which so much of humanity lives, and what we've been doing about it."
For the larger park, the organization decided to add a slum area for contrast, Fuller said. "If we just put model housing out there, Americans would look at it and say, `what a modest house,'" he said. "But if you see the slum housing, you say, `wow, what a difference.'"
Outside the cluster of shacks a sign warned, "Because real-life poverty comes with splintered wood, sharp corners, rough-cut tin, the occasional protruding nail and the like, please exercise extreme caution as you walk through this area."
Each model house has a plaque listing the materials and construction costs, a not too subtle hint for donations. The cheapest house, a brick structure used in Malawi, costs US$2,900 to build. None of the houses has indoor plumbing or electricity.
On a tour last week, Alan and Jeanette Carlson, a retired couple from Wilmer, Minnesotta, admired the Papua New Guinea house, a clapboard structure raised on stilts. "It's like a little lake cabin in Minnesota," said Ms. Carlson, 65, who runs a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate. "We should be so lucky."
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