When refugees first arrive at Nakivale, they receive cash assistance, which covers their first immediate needs, and should help them build their first shelter. Unfortunately, the gap between arrival, land allocation, and construction is a moment of high vulnerability, and the money received is not enough to provide a safe home. Families are exhausted, unfamiliar with the system, and usually unable to build more than a makeshift tent with a tarp and some wooden poles, which can end up being their home for months until they can afford a decent shelter. In this transition, funds can be misused or lost, leaving households without a safe place to live at the moment they need it most.

Paa Bora is an answer to this problem as an immediate day-one shelter that grows with family to permanence and stability in the settlement.

The Challenge

The first days on a new plot of land are critical. Without immediate shelter, families may resort to unsafe temporary solutions, fall victim to scams, or spend their limited cash on short-term rent inside the settlement, delaying or preventing the construction of a permanent home. Also, many families are made out of single mothers with young children, or people with special needs, making them unable to build and supply at the same time.

More Than Temporary

What makes the Paa Bora shelter truly distinctive is that it is designed to transform over time, adapting from temporary to permanent. Translated from “better roof” in swahili, the project name was inspired by how the timber frame and Duro-Last membrane of the emergency structure are reused as the roof structure of the family’s future permanent brick home.

This approach simplifies the construction process, as the roof is often the most technically challenging component to build. It also avoids material waste and brings environmental considerations into emergency response contexts, where they are often overlooked.

Once the walls are complete, the original shelter structure is transferred onto the new house, becoming a safe and stable roof. This way, we optimize work and build faster, ensuring every family a home as soon as possible.

Enter Shelter Depot. This is where Shelter Depot is designed to shine, as an anti-fragile aid distribution method where refugees can decide for themselves what they want for their homes for that twenty-year-plus timeline of living away from home.

Shelter Depot is a hardware store that treats refugees and displaced families as customers so they can build lives of wholeness and agency in the new country they are a part of.