Make regular donations

 or

a one-off contribution.

Thank you!

[ about ] → [ what we do ] → [ Built Environment Professionals' role in Development ]

[ Built Environment Professional's role in Development ]

Article 25 are working on about a dozen projects at any given time where we are giving people the skills and means to help rebuild their lives and communities. We provide architectural skills vital in our projects – we are on the ground worldwide assessing damage, showing how to mitigate risk or designing a solution that is sustainable. There are a number of ways to add value. Architects and engineers are highly trained expert individuals. They are uniquely able to craft solutions to problems. This ingenuity is what gives them the ability to make such a difference in the worst case scenario. We are often able to prevent mistakes being made, to stop costs from escalating, to prevent bad shelter from being produced – in Ghana our orphanage project would have executed buildings for the children that we call the Pizza Oven. Corrugated metal roofs with poor ventilation, shade and materials. For a small intervention the benefit to the children is massive.

Even before Article 25 had completed our registration as a charity we were asked if we could help a large international charity find an architect at 24 hours’ notice. We did this; and within 6 hours of making our call to arms, a volunteer was receiving vaccinations and acquiring his visa. The charity we were helping, needed to give people a way to quickly build animal shelters for their livestock after the earthquake of October 2005. This was essential to the survival of the people in the harsh winters in the mountains of Pakistan. The same charity has come back to us to ask us to help fund and put together a workshop this year (again in Pakistan) which will teach people how to rebuild shelter with seismically resistant strength from basic materials. These are life saving skills. The workshop will teach community leaders and builders. They in turn will teach other villagers, spreading the benefit. We were back there again working with International NGO Muslim Aid in 2007 building homes in Bagh and in Jareed, in North West Pakistan.

In every country and on every project staff from Article 25 can assess, advise, design and execute better shelter solutions that make all the difference in the world.

Over the long term we aim to create a shareware resource for any NGO or aid organisation to use and crucially, a database of response professionals who can act after humanitarian emergencies and be available for development projects worldwide. This BEAR database has been cried out for over many years and has been too long in the making. We want to change that now and we have the support of the UIA, ACE and RIBA to make that change. We want built environment professionals everywhere to be able to share their knowledge and give their skills whenever they can. To join in - just get in touch.