PRESS RELEASE 06 September 2017
A fundraiser has been initiated to support returning refugees in Iraq while they restore their homes ruined after years of civil war. The Swiss child relief agency Terre des hommes and the Swedish social enterprise Better Shelter will provide 500 families with emergency shelters to live in while they rebuild their lives at home.
The Iraqi province of Saladin is suffering from a humanitarian crisis after IS/Daesh took control over several cities in 2014. The Iraqi army has after long battles recaptured control over larger parts of the area, but 3.3 million people are still on flight in the country, whereof 27 000 in the Saladin Province. Now that IS/Daesh has been dislodged from the region, many people want to rebuild their lives in the area.
– More and more regions in Iraq have been freed from IS/Daesh but that does not mean that everybody on flight can return to their homes. Where people’s homes once stood are now ruins. We are glad that the emergency shelters from Better Shelter also can be used outside of refugee camps, and be an aid for people returning to their old lives, says Johan Karlsson, co-founder and Managing Director of Better Shelter.
The leading Swiss child relief agency Terre des hommes will implement the project of distributing 500 shelters and is currently the only active organization in the area. The project is already partly funded, remaining donations are collected through the Austrian donation site respekt.net where people all over the world are free to contribute.
Donations can be made here: https://www.respekt.net/en/support-projects/details/projekt/1530/
For more information on the work Terre des hommes is doing to protect children and their families in Iraq, please visit: https://vimeo.com/218455949
Better Shelter aims to improve the lives of persons displaced by conflicts and natural disasters, by developing and providing innovative housing solutions. The Better Shelter is a weatherproof temporary shelter that offers a more dignified home for displaced families as well as a cost-effective solution for humanitarian organisations. Better Shelter is a social enterprise aiming to achieve social change at scale in a financially self-sustainable way. Every dollar generated in profit is reinvested within the company or distributed to Better Shelter’s philanthropic owner, the non-profit Housing for All Foundation. Better Shelters are currently being used temporary homes and health care facilities in Ethiopia, Greece, Iraq, Macedonia and Nepal. In early 2015, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) signed a frame agreement of 30,000 shelters for its operations worldwide. Better Shelter is the result of a partnership between the IKEA Foundation, UNHCR and Better Shelter. For more information, please visit www.bettershelter.org.
