Enhancing lives of refugees 

The project contributed to sustainable housing and the wellbeing of refugees and underprivileged communities, by offering ‘home retrofitting’ measures to support the implementation of economically and environmentally friendly practices. This was done through a bottom-up approach, taking into consideration the occupants’ need and designed in a participatory manner, while involving all key partners. 

Habitability and Comfort 

• Increased thermal comfort and preventing cold and hot airflow, as well as dampness. 

Community and Connectivity 

• The project trained and built the capacity of local contractors with key retrofitting concepts and trained local engineers and workers on-site on the quality of implementation. 
• Raised awareness to the community on the impact of every intervention on comfort and energy efficiency, creating a long-term impact on occupants and their future decision-making regarding rehabilitation and energy management behaviour. 

Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change 

• Increased the resilience of occupants by enhancing their living conditions and reducing their energy bills, which raised their ability to cope, adapt and transform against chronic and acute shocks they encounter. 
• The project was designed to be replicated in any low-income household. 

Resource Efficiency and Circularity 

• Replacement of single-glazed to double-glazed windows and insulating the roof and envelope. 
• Replacing appliances and lighting to energy efficient equipment. 
• Installing solar water heaters instead of electric boilers. 

Economic Accessibility 

• $7,000-$11,000 USD retrofit investment per house, contributing to 30% reduction and savings in electricity bills. 
• Institutional resilience and fiscal sustainability were enhanced through collaboration of multi-level institutions that share the benefit of reducing public debts from communities, who are now committed to paying bills. 
• An incentive package was designed where the occupants’ living conditions would be improved via building renovation for agreeing to install prepaid electricity metres. This also helped reduce the national electricity debt. 
• The funds are part of the Transition to Solar Energy programme, supporting transitions to solar energy in Education and improving energy efficiency in Refugee Camps. The funds covered all the retrofitting expenses except for replacing some appliances such as refrigerators, these appliances were conditioned by 50% cost-sharing by households. 

More information: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDayMbI2LmE