Happy New Year from the Better Shelter team!

Congolese refugee Apolina Nyassa, 86, lives alone in a Refugee Housing Unit (RHU) given to refugees with special needs, at Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in western Tanzania, February 6, 2019. She likes her new house because it keeps out rain and rats but also liked her old mud brick house (which she now uses for cooking). Apolina said she would have liked the roof to be fixed. She talks a lot about resettlement, says there is nothing for her in the camp – no children, no husband and nothing to do for an elderly woman. ; The Refugee Housing Unit RHU is a self-standing, sustainable and durable shelter, designed through a collaboration between UNHCR, the social enterprise Better Shelter and the IKEA Foundation. The RHUs have panels to make up bedrooms, a kitchen area, a lockable door and a LED lamp which provides more than six hours of light. Opened in 1996 Nyarugusu Refugee Camp now houses 154647 refugees from Democratiic Republic of Congo DRC and Burundi.

We wish all our partners and supporters a peaceful holiday season and a happy new year!

Highlights from the year:

LATIN AMERICA, EUROPE, AFRICA and ASIA: In 2019 alone, we delivered more than 15,000 shelters to four continents.

INDONESIA: In a centre designed specifically for the needs of 181 children displaced by the Lombok Island earthquake, IKEA children’s products can be used to play, learn, and create new memories.

SUSTAINABILITY: We submitted our first UN Global Compact Communication on Progress Report on World Environment Day.

IRAQ: HEKS/EPER supported the return of 120 Iraqi families in al-Ayadia, Iraq

ITALY: The Better Shelter was exhibited in Venice during the 58th Biennale

UGANDA: UNHCR and PCPM set up Better Shelter clinics in one of the world’s largest refugee settlements – Bidi-Bidi in Uganda.

AFGHANISTAN: 175,450 people benefit from hundreds of Better Shelter units serving as classrooms, community centres, health clinics and transit centres across Afghanistan

We look forward to continuing to collaborate with our humanitarian partners next year to support the millions of displaced children, women, and men worldwide.

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