Article 25, Development and Disaster Relief

The 25th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that adequate shelter and housing are fundamental to our human rights.

Article 25, the UK organisation, works to enable this right by building solutions to global problems.

About us

Article 25 is an operational UK registered charity that designs, builds, and manages projects to provide better shelter wherever there is disaster, poverty, or need. We bring experienced, field-appropriate professional skills and academically rigorous research findings to NGOs who want to build.

• We aim to put high-quality design expertise into charitable, humanitarian and development work, putting long-term shelter solutions on the agenda.

• We believe adequate and dignified shelter is a basic human right, and shelter provision should not stop after the immediate humanitarian response to a disaster.

• We want to take vulnerability out of the equation and help people take the first steps to building secure and sustainable livelihoods, through skills training and strengthening local economies.

• We believe the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved without adequate built responses for those in need. Achieving the MDGs will require schools for education, clinics and hospitals for healthcare, and homes for stable refuge.

Disasters and poverty can be catalysts to ‘build back better’, but too often short-term and temporary shelters become permanent and people remain unable to fully recover and rebuild their livelihoods.

Building projects can represent a high risk to charities as they can be hard to get right, difficult to manage, and costly when things go wrong. Investing in good design can seem a luxury when tough decisions on funding need to be made.

But good buildings last, and can be an integral part of the community for years, creating a truly sustainable project. With Article 25’s not-for-profit support a built solution can be provided that is cost-efficient, maximises utility, uses local resources and employs local people in the building process.