When emergencies strike, CARE works to meet people’s basic shelter needs: protection from the elements, security and a base for their livelihoods. CARE’s approach to shelter creates an enabling environment to mobilise the skills, experience, capacities and resources of affected populations so that they are supported as active agents of their own change.
Our 5 principles of shelter are:
- The affected population is the first responder and the most important stakeholder
- Shelter responses are always context specific
- Shelter programmes should be holistic and integrated
- There is a multitude of options for the delivery of shelter programmes
- A strong focus on the needs of women and girls
CARE shelter experts currently form part of the Self-recovery from Humanitarian Crisis research team – an interdisciplinary research project led by the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP), Oxford Brookes University, in collaboration with CARE International UK. Other project partners include Catholic Relief Services (CRS), CRAterre, the Global Shelter Cluster, Habitat for Humanity, Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the British Geological Survey (BGS).
The project focuses on understanding and supporting people’s own choices and efforts to rebuild and self-recover following disasters. The overall aim of the project is to better understand the self-recovery process to inform humanitarian shelter practice, ensuring construction of safer, healthier homes.
CARE also co-chair the Promoting Safer Building Working Group of the Global Shelter Cluster with CRAterre.
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Working towards healthier homes – report from a multi-sectoral shelter and health learning day that explored connections between housing and health in order to build back healthier, as well as safer, after humanitarian crises.
Addressing housing, land and property (HLP) rights challenges – recent HLP profiles for Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey by Hogan Lovells lawyers for CARE International to support shelter practitioners in delivering emergency shelter responses.
Why we must work with refugees from Myanmar on mid-term shelter in the Bangladesh refugee camps – James Morgan, Shelter Advisor, considers the challenges of shifting from short-term emergency response to longer-term support and ensuring families and communities are at the centre of the process
What is self-recovery? – The challenge for humanitarian agencies – reflecting on a study after Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in late 2013, Tom Newby, formerly Head of Humanitarian for CARE International UK, asks what we mean by self-recovery, and what does support to self-recovery look like?
The case for self-recovery – article in Forced Migration Review by CARE’s self-recovery research team on the sector’s development of effective and appropriate approaches to supporting the practice of self-recovery for affected people
Self-recovery in Nepal: Reflecting with practitioners – blog by the self-recovery team about a roundtable discussion held in the Dhading District of Nepal with local practitioners, academics, policymakers and affected communities to reflect on the self-recovery programmes in the area since the devastating earthquakes in 2015.
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