Twenty-seven tents, donated to EAA by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, will be placed in refugee and displaced communities in Syria, Turkey and Yemen.
Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, and its human and social legacy programme, Generation Amazing Foundation, announced that 27 tents, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) to serve and support displaced populations, will be donated to the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) and the Qatar Red Crescent, as part of the country’s efforts to ensure the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ has a lasting impact, beyond the tournament. The news was announced at a ZHA-EAA tent inside the FIFA Fan Festival™ in Doha.
Three ZHA-EAA tents are already being used as schools for hundreds of displaced Pakistani and Syrian children in Pakistan and Turkey, respectively. The newly donated structures will be used as schools, clinics and temporary shelter for displaced communities in Syria, Turkey and Yemen. Fifteen tents will be given to IOM, of which 10 will serve as schools and five as health clinics in Turkey and Yemen. In Syria, Qatar Red Crescent will receive 12 structures that it will serve as shelters for displaced communities in Syria.
The ZHA-EAA tents allow for natural daylight and are weather-proof, modular structures that can be easily moved and re-assembled, incorporating components that can also be upcycled or recycled for sustainability, thereby making them ideal for displaced populations. With more than 70 million people displaced in their own countries or living as refugees, and half under the age of 18, EAA saw a critical need for suitable infrastructure that could serve as classrooms, temporary housing, and medical centres for displaced children and their families. That’s when the Foundation teamed up with Zaha Hadid Architects to create a structure that offers safe, versatile and sustainable spaces for children to use for play, learning, and development.
The ZHA-EAA tent housing EAA’s ‘Scoring 4 the Goals’ campaign at the FIFA Fan Festival was visited by football fans over the course of the FIFA World Cup. The campaign included art and immersive video exhibits, discussions, games and activities which created awareness about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
EAA chairperson, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, spoke of the potential of such an initiative during the campaign closing ceremony, saying that although placing a tent in a displaced community might seem like a small thing,
“every one of the UN goals is interconnected: health, education, eradicating poverty… They are all part of ensuring a sustainable planet.”
Eng. Yasir Al Jamal, director general, Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, said:
“These vital structures will showcase the legacy of the first FIFA World Cup in our region. From day one, our goal has been to deliver a tournament that would benefit Qatar, the region and the world.
“This project highlights the power of the World Cup by helping vulnerable communities long after the final whistle and complements our already successful Generation Amazing Foundation, a football for development legacy initiative which has provided safe spaces and reconstructed football pitches for communities in need globally, positively impacting the lives of more than 1 million people over the past 10 years. We are proud that Generation Amazing will continue to inspire and serve communities through football well into the future.”
Education Above All’s CEO, Fahad Al Sulaiti, said:
“Each and every one of us has a role to play to ensure that we achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. At EAA, we are committed to doing our part to achieving SDG 4, and by donating these tents, we are acting now to help countless children in Yemen, Turkey and Syria to have access to quality and accessible education.”
Zaha Hadid Architects’ project architect Gerry Cruz said,
“We have a like-minded partner in Education Above All who is committed to investing in innovative design for the better good of disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. Together, we developed a robust, cost-effective, and lightweight modular architectural system with fabric envelope to build structures that can be adapted in many variations to meet the conditions and lives of displaced children and children on the move. We hope that these newly donated tents will bring safety, learning and play to thousands in Yemen, Syria and Turkey.”