![]() This stockpiling and prepositioning is prudent and necessary for emergency response to immediate crises (such as natural disasters), but for protracted crises where displacement lasts for years on end, it has become a burden. Tarps are not manufactured close to the need but are global products shipped worldwide and stored in large warehouses ready to be deployed. ![]() Tracking back a bit further, these same three companies have won these same tenders for decades. In fact, if you scour the publicly available tenders on the UN websites, you’ll typically see the same three companies being awarded the largest contracts. Put another way, only those who were already producing the tarps can compete for the massive contracts to supply them. Highly specialized and cost-constrained has served to create massive barriers of entry to competition. This tarp has evolved to be highly specialized in a very cost-constrained environment. However, every decision, especially when globalized, has an abundance of unintended consequences. If the product is good, the agencies can be confident that this product serves families well globally. Specifications ensure a high standardization level, which means the tarp a refugee family receives in Bangladesh is substantially identical to the one a family receives in the Central African Republic. The problem comes down to sourcing and durability. ![]() Stay tuned this year as we pilot both the material and the ability to sew these tarps in the settings where they’re most needed! It lasts longer, is locally sourceable, and is much more sustainable than alternatives. If we can pull it off, we even hope to pay refugees to sew tarps that other refugees will rely on, thus incorporating them in the economy of the goods produced.īillboard tarps are a much-needed change for shelter tarping for refugees. Ultimately we hope to, like our flooring, root it deeply in the community that is hosting refugees. Secondly, we’ll pilot the local collection and manufacturing of the material. We hope to partner with organizations representing diversity in both culture and climate to see where this approach is most effective. In 2021, we will pilot this material in 2 different refugee camps. In the process, we repurposed over 92 tons of plastic while offsetting the need for virgin material to be deployed. We even found ourselves positioned to help over 11,000 US disaster victims because of the groundwork we laid during the pandemic. In 2020, we prototyped and tested locally. Every Shelter’s role here is to expand and demonstrate the relevance of this approach globally and to lay the groundwork to scale this approach to reach as many families as possible. They’re forced to rely on these thin membranes for years on end. To be clear, if the world has tarp experts, it’s these families. We saw refugees using them, and unlike the standard shelter tarps, these lasted for years and not months. Using discarded billboards for tarps wasn’t our idea.
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