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How do you grow nutritious, edible mushrooms in reusable containers? This guide explores one method of using upcycled plastic containers to grow mushrooms for food. < Back Growing Mushrooms in Reusable Containers How do you grow nutritious, edible mushrooms in reusable containers? This guide explores one method of using upcycled plastic containers to grow mushrooms for food. Donate to Re-Alliance Stay updated with our newsletter Download for free: English Español Português عربي Swahili Français

From Permaculture in refugee settlements, to eco-building in disaster prone regions, to water harvesting in areas severely affected by worsening climate change, Re-Alliance and our members showcase how we can create stability, resilience and abundance, even in times of crisis. What could a regenerative humanitarian response look like? Increasing the impact and influence of regenerative responses to disaster, displacement and development Re-Alliance promotes a regenerative vision, beyond sustainability, for the humanitarian and development sectors . From Permaculture gardens in refugee camps, to eco-building in disaster prone regions; eco WASH interventions, to integrated Nature-based Solutions for settlement designing: Re-Alliance members are showcasing how we can create stability, resilience and abundance, even in times of crisis . Join our membership As part of our network, whether a grassroots practitioner or a member of an international NGO or Aid organisation, you will have access to dynamic knowledge, a vibrant and active community of experts, and a wealth of opportunities for collaboration. Our membership is open to all. The only requirements are an interest, understanding or expertise in regenerative design, experience in the humanitarian or development sectors, and a willingness to comply with our code of conduct and policies. Find out more Watch Videos Play Video Play Video 03:35 Water Resilience Design at the Rubondo Regenerative Settlement, Uganda The community involved in co-creating the Regenerative Settlement in Rubondo, Uganda, came together to create a Water resilience design. This included water for instant use (rainwater harvesting and slow sand filtration) and water retention landscapes (through rain gardens and swales). This project is supported by YICE Uganda, Arup, and Re-Alliance. Guilherme (Gui) Castagna from @fluxusecobr is an Engineer, Permaculture Teacher, and Hydrology Designer. He visited Nakivale Refugee Settlement in May 2026 to support with workshops alongside a community of refugees who are co-designing a Regenerative Settlement for 20 families. Naswirah Nalukwago is the Project Building Manager and also the founder of Bassattu Innovations. Winnie Tushabe is the co-founder of YICE Uganda, the project host organisation. Water resilience is important in any context, and especially in Ugandan refugee camps where water can be scarce and inaccessible. Alongside water for daily use like drinking and sanitation, the community are thinking about longer-term solutions by storing as much water in the soil, and restoring aquifers. Find out more about the Regenerative Settlements partnership here: https://www.re-alliance.org/projects/nakivale-settlement Play Video Play Video 07:14 Beejvan | Restoring and regenerating sacred food forests in India Beejvan began in 2022 to revive local understandings of tree-based farming. In this film, Founding Director Sanjana Krishnan explores the joys and the challenges of land-based work. The project has become more than a farming practice, but a healing and community-building activity. 🎥 Film by Pankaj Rishi Kumar Play Video Play Video 04:41 YAKUM | Protecting and restoring the bio-cultural abundance of the Amazon YAKUM partners with three indigenous nations in Ecuador to turn degraded land into cultural food landscapes. In this film by Remi Bumstead, Re-Alliance member YAKUM explores the importance of Indigenous wisdom in forest protection and restoration, and the abundance that healthy forests can offer in terms of culture, food, and climate resilience. Arley Paraguaje and Nick Ovenden explain why YAKUM rediscover and replant diverse cultural foods, and safely harvest food from standing forests. Find out more about YAKUM's work at https://yakum.org/ 🎥 https://remibumstead.com/ Play Video Play Video 07:21 Minak | Growing nutritious mushrooms in a refugee settlement Mariam Antoine from Minak Women-led Organisation helped co-create a programme of training women in Nakivale Refugee Settlement to grow nutritious Oyster mushrooms in reusable buckets. In this video, trainees from Minak organisation explain how mushroom cultivation is such a powerful way to grow the health and income of people living in refugee settlements. Re-Alliance worked with Minak to create a how-to booklet for growing mushrooms. Read more about the project here and download the booklet: https://www.re-alliance.org/post/cultivating-mushrooms-in-buckets Minak is bringing to life real examples of #Permaculture in #Refugee settlements. Play Video Play Video 06:08 YICE Uganda | Urine Diversion Dry Toilets (UDDT) - a type of Compost Toilet Join Winnie Tushabe, co-founder of YICE Uganda, and Ecosan user Uwizeye Salima, in exploring Urine Diversion Dry Toilets (UDDT) a type of Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan) Composting toilet. In the Nakivale refugee camp in Uganda, refugees are given a small plot of land to build a dwelling and farm food on. Re-Alliance's partner organisation YICE Uganda (Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment) is working with families to create kitchen gardens but yields are limited because the soil is poor. Re-Alliance and YICE collaborated to build eight urine diverting dry toilets (or ‘Ecosan’ toilets) for families. By separating the urine and faeces, the volume of composting waste is reduced, extending the capacity of the compost chamber and giving an immediate source of fertiliser in the form of urine, which, when diluted 1:10 - 1:20 with water, is an excellent fertiliser rich in nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. Diverting the urine away stops the compost chamber from becoming anaerobic and smelly and the addition of wood ash or saw dust, after using the toilet, acts as a dehydrating cover material. This design used recycled plastic barrels as containers for the faeces, which ensures no ground pollution. Once nearly full, the barrel is moved aside and replaced with a fresh barrel. With the hot composting achieved inside the barrels, compost can be created in under 12 months in the Ugandan climate. The compost is used to enrich the soil around fruiting trees and bushes. Find out more about this design and create your own with our free guides on www.re-alliance.org/publications . Play Video Play Video 07:35 Unidos Social Innovation Centre | Eco-social regeneration in Nakivale Refugee Settlement What could it look like if Refugee Settlements were thriving ecological and social spaces? Unidos Social Innovation Centre is a refugee-led, community-based organisation that engages with young people located in the Nakivale Refugee settlement, South West Uganda. In this video, Unidos founder Paulinho Muzaliwa explains how they support the communities to create abundant Permaculture gardens, grow biodiverse food forests, and build healthy soils. Find out more about Unidos at https://unidosprojects.org/ Donate to Unidos' work here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/water-4-thriving-african-permaculture-group 🎥 7Times Film Production Play Video Play Video 04:36 Ecopoblaciones | Ecopoblaciones Ecuador Ecopoblaciones Ecuador create eco-social regeneration programs that promote the participatory design and implementation of sustainable and resilient populations. Their work integrates ecology, social, economic and cultural aspects, using tools and processes of eco-neighborhoods, eco-social movements, permaculture, ecotourism, bio-construction, participatory leadership, emotional management, well-being, among others. Find out more about Ecopoblaciones Ecuador here: https://ecopoblaciones.github.io/ Find out more about joining Re-Alliance's thriving community of members here: https://www.re-alliance.org/members Play Video Play Video 11:32 Green Releaf | Designing for resilience in disaster and conflict prone regions in the Philippines Green Releaf Initiative prototyped two projects that aimed to respond to and prevent disasters, in contexts of climate and conflict vulnerability in the Philippines. Green Releaf worked with Permaculture as an approach to address food security, regenerative livelihood, and ecosystem restoration. They had a community-led approach, working with early adapters as grassroots permaculture leaders to train as multipliers. They aimed to highlight the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) from the community, honouring their earth wisdom as key to the community's resilience. Featuring grassroots community leaders from areas affected by disasters and displacement where Green Releaf worked, this film begins to document the knowledge learned and practices implemented over time. Read Articles A new, free online learning course exploring Regenerative approaches to disasters and displacement The climate and nature crises and rising displacement are no longer "future risks". With reducing aid budgets and increasing conflicts and displacement, we have to shift our practices now to become resilient to oncoming shocks. This new course offers an introduction to what a Regenerative Response could look like. Re-Alliance The Farmers and Beekeepers who are reforesting Mount Cameroon Mount Cameroon is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in Cameroon, including endangered forest elephants, chimpanzees, and the elusive primates called Drills. Farmer and apiculturist Evambe Thompson helps to nurture the biodiversity of this critical ecosystem by replanting trees, and encouraging nature-friendly livelihoods. Batata Boris-Karloff The Peacebuilding and Environment Nexus: healing land, systems and communities How do climate change, land conflict, and ecological loss shape violence, and how can environmental cooperation support peace? A regenerative lens on trauma healing, agency, and systems change. Juliet Millican We can support you Re-Alliance and our members have hosted several training programmes for humanitarian and development organisations and agencies. We can help you and your organisation to integrate regenerative paradigms and practices into your operation, interventions, and policy. Contact us to arrange a meeting and find out more. Contact us

< back Date of completion: 1 May 2024 First Response to Trauma Psychosocial support and community building for trauma healing. Re-Alliance and SACOD have been working with communities displaced by conflict in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions, exploring several trauma healing approaches and supporting 1,278 individuals (across 210 households). For people forced from their homes, trauma is more than an emotional wound—it reshapes daily life, erodes social ties, and deepens vulnerabilities. SACOD's approach to trauma healing combined traditional healing practices, vocational skills training, and community-led resilience strategies to provide a holistic response to the psychological and practical challenges of displacement. Healing from trauma does not happen in isolation—it is strengthened through connection. Recognising this, 22 first-line psychosocial responders were trained who can now offer Psychosocial First Aid (PFA), group therapy, and emotional support to their communities. The training emphasised the power of collective healing, where peer support and shared experiences can form the foundation for recovery. Through focus group discussions, storytelling, and arts therapy, displaced individuals found ways to express pain, reconnect with cultural identity, and foster hope. Music and dance from their home regions reignited a sense of belonging, while expressive writing and campfire rituals provided a symbolic way to release grief and reclaim strength. Alongside SACOD, we created this short booklet to help guide community first responders .

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< back Date of completion: 1 Jan 2023 Lime-Stabilised Soil Building in Cox's Bazar Disaster resistant eco-buildings made from locally sourced materials in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Re-Alliance founding member and natural building specialist Bee Rowan, collaborating with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and a group of refugee Rohingya peoples living in Cox's Bazar, undertook a Lime-stabilised Soil building project. Lime-Stabilised Soil (LSS) is a sustainable, eco-friendly building material composed of a mixture of soil, lime, and other natural materials. LSS building is a low-carbon and cost-effective strategy, making it an effective, locally sourced solution for many displacement contexts. In Cox's Bazar, prone to disasters such as flooding and fires, LSS buildings are shown to be more resilient to fires, floods, and extreme heatwaves. To test Lime-stabilised Soil technology’s effectiveness compared to conventional building materials like cements, the Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, was chosen as the test site. This area frequently faces crises of monsoon floods, cyclones, fires, and heatwaves. Existing shelters often fail to withstand these climate-related disasters, leaving the camp community highly vulnerable. The team created effective Lime-stabilised Soil mixes using local subsoil collected from 11 different camps. Using this new material, a fire resilience test was conducted to explore its potential as a fire-resistant material. The results were positive. While a traditional shelter burned down in just five minutes, the LSS-plastered shelter remained intact after 20 minutes of direct fire exposure. This experiment demonstrated the material’s effectiveness as a firebreak in a real-life scenario. Beyond fire resistance, LSS has also shown superior compressive wet strength and thermal performance, which helps shelters cope with heavy rains, flooding, and intense heatwaves. The efforts to showcase LSS technology quickly gained support, leading to wider scaling and adoption. IOM received additional funding to build over 2,000 LSS shelters across the camp. Also, large agencies including UNHCR and Caritas adopted the technology, resulting in a pilot of 51 LSS shelters. Moreover, this project has received approval from the Bangladesh government to increase the use of LSS in the camp. Lime-stabilised Soil has strong potential as a future technology for shelters in displacement contexts worldwide. Already, approximately 300 Rohingya refugees were trained in shelter construction and have begun training groups. Continued interest and commitment to Lime-stabilised Soil building will help reduce reliance on conventional, unsustainable materials, providing safer and more resilient shelters in vulnerable communities globally. For more information, visit this blog .

< back Date of completion: 1 Jul 2023 Urban rooftop garden in Al-Buriej Refugee Camp Growing food gardens on rooftops in Gaza, showcasing urban growing in places with limited access to land. In partnership with Re-Alliance, GUPAP aimed to provide a pilot project in Buriej Refugee Camp, Gaza, which lacked agricultural and green places. This project aimed at promoting urban rooftop gardens in refugee camps in order to encourage urban agriculture, and food sovereignty. It was also a wellbeing activity, reminding the families of their lands in the occupied state of Palestine. Moreover, the project allows resident refugees to secure food in the face of poor economic conditions and a lack of humanitarian aid. Through this intervention, building a pilot rooftop garden on the residential unit, designing a roof garden, and an irrigation system, where the design was chosen based on the available house space, the design also took into account that there should be a small greenhouse for growing summer plants during the winter, and agriculture open spaces for seasonal crops, as well as adding the technique of planting pipes to exploit the walls and increase the green space. Thus, an entire family, with an average of 20 members, obtained a financial return that represented self-sufficiency in food and saved the cost of buying vegetables and transportation. Within the framework of this activity, GUPAP supported 20 people who were negatively affected by the economic situation of Gaza City. providing agricultural basics also contributed to increasing the green area and reducing solid waste. It is with great sadness that we say, when the Israeli military invaded and bombarded Gaza from October 2023, this project was destroyed. Re-Alliance wishes to express solidarity with all the women of Gaza who created roof gardens for themselves, their families, and their communities. We hope for a time of peace and freedom when the seeds that are planted are allowed to flourish.

< Back Mary Mellett Research, Content & Compliance Lead Mary has a background working for community groups and charities, including homeless charities, community facilities provision and neighbourhood planning projects. After studying Architecture and Planning at Bristol UWE, she has used the skills learnt to help support groups with their varied needs including website maintenance, group liaison, finances and grant applications.

< back Date of completion: 1 Mar 2023 Building Treebogs in Kakuma Refugee Settlement FHE built several twin Treebog composting toilets in Kakuma Refugee Settlement. These are raised composting toilets which feed 'humanure' directly to perennial plant roots. A Treebog, designed by Permaculturist Jay Abrahams from Biologic Design, is a raised composting drop toilet which directly feeds into tree roots. It is a regenerative sanitation system that converts human waste (urine, faeces, and wiping paper) into biomass with minimal secondary handling. By using moisture-loving trees, shrubs, and bushes planted around the compost pile, the Treebog system uses natural resources to reduce odours and feed the composting process with necessary carbon-rich material. Re-Alliance’s partner Farming & Health Education implemented this project in Kakuma Refugee Settlement, Kenya. They were concerned that the secondary handling of human waste can be a significant health barrier in camps and settlements. Whereas with Treebogs, toilets are only emptied after the contents have fully decomposed due to the twin-pit system. The core goal of this project was to install a double-unit Treebogs for the community and convert everyday toilet wastes into fertile compost, and measure to see how long it takes to fill the system, and then for the humanure to naturally degrade. The unique aspect to Treebogs is that while the contents are composting, they are feeding the roots of trees, giving the double benefits of tree growth with compost production. The project included teaching communities how to manage the Treebog system. This involved instructing on the daily use of the Treebog toilets, and what to plant around Treebogs. It's important to only plant perennial plants such as trees, and not annual plants, to avoid interacting with the soil around the Treebog. This Treebog project involved 70 participants, whose attitudes toward ecological sanitation shifted from negative (primarily because of a perception that composting toilets would be smelly or dirty) to highly positive after experiencing the Treebog system. This effective implementation created a viable, regenerative WASH system and a valuable biological resource. Ecologically, the system’s soil quality rapidly improved, becoming noticeably darker and richer. Trees around the Treebog grew up to two times faster than those not around the Treebog, as a result of the influx of organic matter and water directly feeding their roots. Existing Treebogs serve as powerful working examples. The Re-Alliance team are eager to further test this concept to see whether it is viable for full-scale use across camps and settlements. You can find out more about Treebogs in this publication .

This picture-led booklet advises on seasonal food growing in refugee camps, made by Re-Alliance's partner SOILS Permaculture Association - Lebanon, in partnership with German Development Cooperation - GIZ, Mercy Corps, and the World Food Program. Translated from the original Arabic with permission from SOILS Permaculture Association - Lebanon. < Back Seasonal Food Growing in Refugee Settlements This picture-led booklet advises on seasonal food growing in refugee camps, made by Re-Alliance's partner SOILS Permaculture Association - Lebanon, in partnership with German Development Cooperation - GIZ, Mercy Corps, and the World Food Program. Translated from the original Arabic with permission from SOILS Permaculture Association - Lebanon. Donate to Re-Alliance Stay updated with our newsletter Download for free: English, Arabic & Greek

A literature analysis examining the extent to which existing guidelines on camp management offer a regenerative approach in settlement design, shelter design, food growing and water and WASH. Includes recommendations for the production of future regenerative guidelines. < Back Testing Regenerative Design guidelines for Refugee Camps and Settlements A literature analysis examining the extent to which existing guidelines on camp management offer a regenerative approach in settlement design, shelter design, food growing and water and WASH. Includes recommendations for the production of future regenerative guidelines. Donate to Re-Alliance Stay updated with our newsletter Download for free: English

This illustrated guide explores how to build and maintain a urine-diversion composting toilet called an Ecosan, which captures nutrient-rich urine for plant fertiliser, and human manure for use in farming. < Back Ecosans: Toilets in a Barrel This illustrated guide explores how to build and maintain a urine-diversion composting toilet called an Ecosan, which captures nutrient-rich urine for plant fertiliser, and human manure for use in farming. Donate to Re-Alliance Stay updated with our newsletter Download for free: English Español Français عربي Swahili