Living conditions inside the camps are calamitous: they are overcrowded, poorly lit, and lacking adequate sanitation. Seventy (70) percent of the refugees are without sufficient shelter and half have no safe drinking water. Residents live in makeshift shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulins, or with no shelter at all. Women and children are vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and human trafficking. Furthermore, the camps are under constant threat of flooding, landslides, fires, and other disasters. 

These camps, like many settlements, place significant pressure on their natural environment. Inadequate systems such as unsafe housing, food and energy production, and waste management further exacerbate these pressures. Project RENEWABLE seeks to address these issues through (1) green building design, and (2) renewable energy. 

Our advisory board of Green Building specialists guide our infrastructure design and development to build a more sustainable and habitable future. The image above depicts our new school that was built with sustainable bamboo, runs on renewable solar energy, and is equipped with a roofing architectural concept designed to improve airflow within the building. 

In 2023/24 we will introduce our Clean Cooking Program. Nearly 3 billion people world-wide cook their food on an open fire, causing devastating effects on health and climate. Smoke from open fires contributes to deadly indoor air pollution and contains black carbon, which contributes to climate change. While many cooking stoves in the camps have been converted to gas, natural gas is yet another fossil fuel and its use further depletes our planet. EarthChildren is combating these detrimental environmental and health effects by using clean cookstoves, which are portable, created from recyclable and renewable materials, inexpensive, and produce very little smoke. The stoves are powered by biobricks which are made from compressed rice waste and sourced from local producers. The fuel itself will drastically reduce the current dependency in the camps on fossil fuels and the collection of firewood as a fuel source.