![Tobias Jimenez](https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/902/2020/07/2020fall-building-empowerment-thumbnail-198x198.jpg)
The building of social empowerment
Tobias Jimenez spent his childhood in the type of settlement that he and his colleague Sean Anderson are now striving to improve.
The structures “have no electricity,” Jimenez says. “None have potable water. They’re not connected to the sewer. It’s not sanitary.”
Jimenez (’17 Arch., ’19 M.Arch.) was born in Pasco but moved to Colima, Mexico, with his parents as an infant. They raised him in an informal settlement— “like a favela,” he explains—on the city’s outskirts. “You’re focusing on surviving. You’re spending most of your time and energy trying to meet your basic needs. Living there is one of the reasons I decided to … » More …