We build pop up schools around the world with the MAGGIE shelter
Supporting education through innovation.
People need buildings to organise classrooms. But in some situations fixed structures are not permitted, practical, or desired.
In 2015 DMOA architects designed the Maggie shelter, a semi-permanent structure that looks like a tent, but is designed and built to offer the advantages of modern buildings. The Maggie provides a multipurpose, temporary shelter for a diverse range of facilities such as housing units or learning and health centres in underprivileged communities and hard to reach areas.
Today, education remains an inaccessible right for millions of children around the world. Although the situation is slowly improving, we, with Maggie Program, want to be part of this change.
We focus on places like natural disaster-stricken areas and refugee camps where Maggies’ unique properties such as construction speed and portability make the difference.
Our blueprints
Rent, donate, connect
Are you a school or organization in Belgium that has a temporary need for infrastructure and wants to make a difference ?
Rent a Maggie for three years and afterwards we will ship her to a developing country. She will become a school for disadvantaged children for at least another 15 years.
Your initial rent paid becomes a life changing donation.
Maggie goes to
Are you a strongly embedded local actor in a developing country with an urgent or temporary need for school infrastructure ? Then maybe the Maggie Shelter is your solution.
Boots on the ground
Is your company looking to do more than just charity ? Are you ready to make your hands dirty ? Then maybe you can become a project partner to go and build a Maggie School with your colleagues.
Our vision
In a lot of situations fixed structures are not permitted, practical or desired. So we set out to create a temporary, low-cost shelter that has the qualities and advantages of a sturdy, insulated construction: a tent that acts like a building: introducing the ‘Maggie’.
Our objective is to start up, implement, supervise and evaluate Maggie projects worldwide. We want to focus on places like natural disaster stricken areas and refugee camps where Maggies’ unique properties such as construction speed and portability make the difference. More specifically we’re really motivated by creating safe and qualitative spaces for education.
By choosing concrete projects over a broader approach we choose for a direct and clear impact. Through ‘Maggie goes to …’ we’ve been able to impact different communities around the world, providing them with quality spaces for education.
We believe that there’s a place for small and innovative initiatives in the human-aid sector.
With Maggie Program we bring this vision to life. It’s a small yet effective organization with a simple cost structure, high efficiency, and a lot of know-how. Due to our size, we are very decisive, making the rollout of projects easy and fast. Introducing an approach where end-quality, sustainability, inclusiveness, and long-term impact are central. Furthermore, we hope to inspire and challenge larger organisations with our projects.
Today, education remains an inaccessible right for millions of children around the world.
More than 72 million children of primary education age are not in school and 759 million adults are illiterate and do not have the awareness necessary to improve both their living conditions and those of their children. Although the situation is slowly improving, we, with Maggie Program, want to be part of this change.
Blueprint 1
Rent, donate, connect
Rent, donate, connect gives schools and other organisations with an urgent infrastructure problem a sustainable, durable and social solution. The Maggie is fast and easy to assemble, yet provides a high quality space. After a minimum of three years rent, the Maggie can be dismantled and shipped to a place in need. The initial rent paid becomes a life changing donation. This means a double win for both communities.
March 2020 Maggie Program received a call for a new North-South circular project. The concept is to first set up a school building in the north, in this case in Leuven, Belgium and then after 3 years in a developing country in the south.
In the search for a sustainable ecosystem for Maggie Program, the idea came to first do a "pre-project" locally with us, where there are also a lot of needs for temporary housing and classic containers are not always the best solution.
By first renting out the Maggie shelters as a temporary solution for a shorter term to schools, organizations, governments, etc. and then donating them to aid organizations in a developing country, the final development project can be partly financed with own resources and reduces the need for donations. The Maggies are disassembled after a few years of local use and shipped to a developing country where they can serve as a school for another 15 years or more. With this concept, Maggie Program is taking the step towards a more independent social enterprise that uses resources from projects in the North for its humanitarian projects in the South. In other words, by renting a Maggie school from us you support a good cause elsewhere in the world.
Rent a Maggie
The Maggie shelter is an award winning, sustainable innovation that provides fully equipped polyvalent spaces in a unique way: it’s fast and easy to assemble, highly insulated for our Belgian climate and built together with volunteers from your and our network. This inclusive approach creates a strong involvement which makes you part of our social entrepreneurship. The Maggie can pop up when you are in urgent need of a high quality yet temporary structure. you can rent your custom made Maggie for a minimum of 3 years.
Donate a school
Once your temporary need is gone, we will dismantle, transport and donate the Maggies to an educational program in a developing country. We will rebuild them as a school together with the local community, creating an income for local people as wel as ownership over the project. For filling up the walls we use local materials (sand, earth, clay, straw, …). This way Maggie will help giving disadvantaged children and adults acces to education in a high quality space for the next 15 years and more. This (re)cycle makes the Maggie a circular innovation.
Connect the world
The initial paid rent becomes a life-changing donation. This means a double win for both communities. The Maggies in the developing countries will be fully equipped, off-grid solarized, and connected to the internet. This will help the community to connect to the world and to your school, organization or company. You become part of a global project. People from different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds can learn and benefit from each other by sharing memories and experiences in the Maggie that brought them together.
Our ‘rent, donate, connect’-projects
In the summer of 2020, the first pilot project according to this concept was rolled out for the Sint-Norbertus school in Heverlee. The school was being renovated and therefore needed temporary classes. Containers were initially considered, but that turned out to be unfeasible at this location.
So, with the help of volunteers, we built 4 low-energy Maggies consisting of 6 classes and a teacher's room. After almost 4 years, this summer we will dismantle the school and rebuild it in Kikwit (DR Congo) for underprivileged children.
The years after, more and more projects were initiated! PHASE 1 : First build-up
PHASE 1 First build-up
PHASE 2 Disassembly
Maggie went to Leuven
Blueprint 2
Maggie goes to
The Maggie Program provides quality spaces to support education in developing countries. We build sustainable school infrastructure for - and in collaboration with - local communities.
During each mission, we value the following criteria to ensure a qualitative, circular, and supportive project:
Implementing local materials with the aid of the community
Transferring knowledge to the community to make sure they will be able to develop similar projects independently in the future.
Critically evaluating each case to provide a tailor-made solution.
Together with the local community
Maggies’ unique qualities combined with the help of local workers allow for durable spaces that are built in no time. This allows a valuable solution in areas where it is hard, or even impossible, to construct more traditional buildings due to political, practical, or time-related issues.
By using local materials such as sand, insulation, and even plastic waste in the construction of the Maggie Shelter, we create a sustainable, circular, and ecological infrastructure, that is able to stand for at least 15 years.
When local actors indicate the need for temporary shelters, we provide the Maggies. The Maggie Program thus always answers to an existing demand, so that the Maggie is instantly embedded into the daily life of the locals.
In tandem with our engaged partners
The international humanitarian Maggie projects were sponsored by corporate partners, service clubs, and private parties. All of whom sympathize with the values and goals of the Maggie Program.
In addition, we recently launched a funding program that allows Belgian schools to rent a Maggie shelter as a temporary classroom. After three years of use, the Maggie is donated to a place in need to house schools for disadvantaged children. This funding program evolves the Maggie shelter into a circular economic model that will be less dependent on donations.
Our ‘Maggie goes to’-projects
IRead more about our previous ‘Maggie goes to’-projects to Cameroon (2018), Yezidi (2019), Kakuma (2020) and The High Atlas (2024).
Blueprint 3
Boots on the ground
In order to realize our Maggie projects, we rely on the hard work of our enthusiastic team of volunteers. However, we can always use an additional pair of helping hands!
Does your company consist of engaged, motivated and hardworking colleagues who are interested in supporting humanitarian projects? Let us know and join our next ‘Boots on the ground’-project!
Our ‘Boots on the ground’-projects
In March 2022, our latest ‘Boots on the ground’-project has been realized in Mombasa, Kenya! Take a look at the developments on the construction site and read about the activities of our local actor Close the Gap Kenya that happened last year in this Maggie!
Next up: Maggie goes to Senegal in November! Together with the local partner Caluna vzw, 2 Maggie shelters will be build up close to the pediatric cancer department of the local hospital in M’bour to serve as a medical training center and as an activity center for the children during their cancer treatment.
Press and publications
DCHI Awards 2019
The Leuven-based architectural firm DMOA (Belgium) received an award this weekend at the Innovation Festival in Amsterdam. Their project, Maggie—a tent designed to offer the durability and quality of a permanent building—was named the best humanitarian innovation of the year. The festival focused on innovation in development cooperation. (Het Laatste Nieuws, 2019)
Exhibition at MoMA
For over 60 million persons in the world today, shelter is defined through constant movement or escape. Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter explores the ways in which contemporary architecture and design have addressed notions of shelter in light of global refugee emergencies. (…) This exhibition is part of Citizens and Borders, a series of discrete projects at MoMA related to works in the collection that offer a critical perspective on histories of migration, territory, and displacement. (MOMA, 2016)
Henry van de Velde Award
The Maggie looks like a large tent but offers the benefits and functionality of a permanent building. For the price and weight of a modest family car, you get a 105m² sustainable structure. Beyond the humanitarian sector, Maggies also prove valuable in remote and conflict regions. (Henry van de Velde Awards, 2016)
Follow our journey.
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Contact us.
florence@maggie-program.org
+32 479 80 65 89
benjamin@maggie-program.org
+32 477 66 06 89
Erasme Ruelensvest 21c,
3001 Heverlee, Belgium