We are project partners with Rotary International, a global community of 1.4 million neighbours, friends, leaders and problem-solvers. Their aim is to create positive, lasting change in communities at home and all over the world.
By working together with Rotary, we are able to collaborate and combine resources to ensure that we can support more communities in desperate need of shelter after disaster.
Rotary members and clubs across the world support us in a variety of ways, from raising awareness and funds to providing practical assistance on the ground during our response to a disaster. This enables us to work more effectively and reach more communities around the world.
Project partners
ShelterBox began in 2000 as a Cornish Rotary Club’s millennium project. With the support of Rotary members and clubs around the world, ShelterBox grew to become an internationally recognised, independent disaster relief organisation. Since 2012, ShelterBox and Rotary have been official Project Partners in disaster relief.
Each year, Rotary helps us to go further, support more people and access areas that would otherwise be impossible to reach. Read about our impact in 2024, with enabling help from Rotary here.
Read the impact reportThe partnership between Rotary and ShelterBox has provided a place of refuge to people facing some of the most difficult and uncertain moments in their lives.
– John Hewko, General Secretary of Rotary International
On the ground
When ShelterBox and Rotary work together after disaster, the combination of ShelterBox’s technical expertise and Rotary’s connections and practical assistance mean that we can get our support to those who need it most. Rotary members might have a role to play in any one of the various stages of a response, from sharing valuable contacts on the ground, to facilitating logistics and providing warehousing space. This vital support means that we can reach more communities when disaster strikes.
On the day the 2023 Morocco earthquake struck, ShelterBox and Rotary members—in Morocco and around the world—started communicating about the response. By collaborating with Rotary members on logistics and permissions, and through practical support in our warehouse, we were able to get emergency aid to the communities who had been affected before freezing winter temperatures arrived. Thanks to our partners in District 9010 and The Grand Atlas Foundation, we supported thousands of people in 22 mountain villages to survive and recover.
25 years of ShelterBox
Watch our video to learn how ShelterBox has supported more than 3 million people in around 100 countries around the world.
Partnership in action
Watch our latest video with an introduction from ShelterBox Trustee and Past Rotary International Vice President, Yinka Babalola to learn more about what we do, and why it’s more important now, than ever before.
ShelterBox is working in the Afar region of Ethiopia to support internally displaced people
As part of our long-term Rotary engagement plan in Ethiopia, ShelterBox and Rotary conducted a pilot project with our partner, IOM. Seven Rotaractors were identified to join the distributions in Afar alongside the ShelterBox team. The volunteers assisted our distribution of aid items to support people there in various ways, including delivering aid to households with persons with a disability.