Who am I ?

“Conquer yourself and you will conquer the world” – Gautama Buddha.
Tattooed on her arm, this quote is her life drive. Following this philosophy, she always kept in focus her teenage project: working in the humanitarian field.
Committed to building the future of women and men

Construction manager in Switzerland for 5 years
As a construction manager, during five years at one of Switzerland’s leading construction companies, Mélanie Lutz has developed her skills in the construction of commercial buildings and housing. She worked in particular on a complex of 5 buildings, including 3 historic ones, or 25’000m2 in the center of Geneva for the UBS bank. Working in a predominantly male job, she learned how to manage teams and collaborate with different trades.
Cooperative civil engineer in Nicaragua for 2 years
While working as a construction supervisor, she keeps in mind to go to Central America to support a Swiss NGO Eirene, which organizes exchanges with its local partners. She concretizes her dream in 2016 with the Roncalli Juan XXIII Association in Nicaragua. This association allows economically disadvantaged families to have access to decent housing. In Nicaragua, she accompanies civil engineers and foremen to improve site monitoring and construction quality.
A new diploma and 7 month trip to South America
Melanie sees families on a daily basis fighting for worthy housing and asks herself a lot of questions about the notion of dignity. She wonders if dignity stops at the door of the house, and what is the impact of housing on our evolution as a citizen?
Her conclusion is that dignity extends to other spheres of life than housing alone. She thinks that dignity is about having access to life opportunities.
She then graduated a new diploma in Development Policies and Practices, in parallel with her mission with the NGO. To confront her vision of housing worthy to reality, she goes to meet communities in South and Central America for 7 months.
Hurbanity, a social enterprise for housing and property development : an innovative and integral concept.
It was after this journey that Hurbanity was born. Its vocation is to help the human, by anchoring its roots in the social entrepreneurship, while maintaining a flexibility in its concept, and by integrating the local actors.
Get in touch with us, and get involved.
To join a Hurbanity community is choosing to take advantage to improve his everyday’s life. It’s living in a dignified house, benefiting from a model that builds and strengthens the social relations of the community, by benefiting of vocational training and of the opportunity to develop his own business activity to improve his everyday’s conditions of life and the one of his family.
But you can also get involved in Hurbanity helping with her financial development.