Completed UDRS modular homes on a build site
Partners & investors

A SHACK REPLACEMENT YOU CAN ACTUALLY SCALE

Corrugated iron was never meant for habitat — it's inhumane for a family to call a sheet of tin home. We're piloting portable, modular homes in Kya Sand, built off-site, assembled in days, and designed from the start to be reproduced by the hundred rather than admired by the one.

THE MATH OF A
SHACK

A shack costs almost nothing to build and everything to live in. One fire takes a row of them in minutes, and the family that rebuilds rebuilds the same thing — because the same thing is all that's available. Relief work, ours included, is money spent repeatedly on the consequences of a structure nobody would choose.

2.4M South Africans living in informal housing

Our relief programmes will keep running. But the only version of this work that ends is the one that replaces the structure itself.

The aftermath of a fire in an informal settlement

THE UNIT

Manufactured off-site, delivered flat, assembled on site in days. Relocatable, because tenure in a settlement is rarely permanent and a home that can't move becomes a home that gets abandoned.

Interior wall corner and panel joint of a UDRS unit

Panel joints finished square, not caulked over

Electrical wall socket installed in the corner of a UDRS unit

Wired for power, not just plumbed for later

Interior of a UDRS unit showing the screeded floor and a window

Screeded floor, ready for a family to finish as they choose

Bathroom fitted inside a UDRS unit, with toilet and shower installed

A bathroom that works — not a promise for later

Floor area TBC
Assembly on site TBC days
Cost per unit RTBC
Units placed to date TBC

Pilot figures are being finalised — ask us for the current numbers.

WHY THIS DESIGN

  • Off-site manufacture. Quality is controlled in a workshop, not improvised in a yard, and site time drops to days.
  • Relocatable. The unit can be lifted and moved, so a family isn't forced to choose between a home and a chance at land.
  • Cheaper than brick. Materially below conventional brick-and-mortar construction for the same footprint.
  • Repeatable. The same drawing, the same bill of materials, whether it's one unit or a hundred.
  • Locally assembled. Assembly work goes to people from the settlement it's being built in.

WHERE WE ARE

Pilot units in Kya Sand

Built, placed and lived in. Photographs on this page are our own units, not a supplier's catalogue.

Costing the repeatable version

Turning what we learned on the pilots into a fixed bill of materials and a per-unit price that holds at volume.

Funding the first block

The stage we're raising for now: a contiguous group of units rather than scattered ones, so the services case can be made properly.

AGAINST THE ALTERNATIVES

The comparison that matters isn't our unit against a suburban house. It's our unit against what the family has today, and against what conventional construction would cost to give them instead. It's also the difference between shelter and dignity — no family should have to measure their home against a sheet of tin.

  Shack (today) UDRS modular unit Conventional brick build
Time to occupancy Days Days once delivered Months
Cost per household Near zero to build, repeatedly rebuilt RTBC Materially higher
Fire behaviour Spreads shack to shack Engineered, non-improvised structure Resistant
Relocatable Only by demolition Yes, by design No
Weather & flooding Leaks, floods, overheats Sealed, raised, insulated Good
Scales to a settlement Already has — that's the problem Yes, same design repeated Rarely, on cost and land

Scroll the table sideways to compare →

WHY CORPORATES SHOULD CARE

Shared Value

Aligning with a life-changing mission lets a company meet its ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) commitments while making a tangible difference — not one or the other.

Community Trust

Partnerships like this build goodwill, strengthen brand reputation, and foster trust with the stakeholders who are watching where a company's money actually goes.

Sustainable Impact

Long-term empowerment reduces dependency, creating healthier communities and stronger markets — the return that keeps paying after the donation is spent.

FOUR WAYS TO COME IN

From a signed CSR programme to a pallet of materials. All four are genuinely useful; the first is the one that changes the trajectory.

Flagship

FUND THE HOUSING PIPELINE

Capital into the modular housing programme itself — the costing work, the first block of units, and the supply chain that makes the hundredth unit cheaper than the first. Structured to your requirements, with reporting to match.

Per unit

SPONSOR A HOME

One named unit for one identified family, with the build documented from delivery to handover. The most legible CSR story we have: a family, an address, a before and an after.

Your team

CSR & EMPLOYEE DAYS

Employee volunteer days on distributions and builds, co-branded community initiatives, or a drive run through your offices. Good for your people, and we're short of hands every single week.

In kind

SUPPLY, TRADES & LOGISTICS

Building materials, transport, warehousing, or your tradespeople for a week. In-kind support goes further here than almost anywhere, because it removes cost we'd otherwise fundraise for.

ACCOUNTABILITY, IN WRITING

Section 18A tax certificate — we're an approved PBO (930091096)
Written reporting on what your contribution bought and where
Photography and footage you're free to use in your own reporting
Site visits — come and see it, with your board if you like
Co-branding on the initiatives you fund, if you want it
A named contact who answers their phone
UDRS organisers addressing a community gathering

START WITH A CONVERSATION

No proposal template, no pitch deck required. Tell us roughly what you're considering and we'll come back with what it would actually buy and what we'd commit to in return.

You send this form

Rough shape only. Budget, timing and constraints are welcome but not required.

We reply within two working days

With costings for what you described and honest answers about what we can and can't deliver.

You come and look

A site visit in Kya Sand before any money moves. We'd rather you saw it than took our word for it.

010 220 5051 info@udrs.co.za Johannesburg

Partner & investor enquiry

Something went wrong. Please try again, or reach us directly at info@udrs.co.za / 010 220 5051.

Goes straight to the UDRS team, nowhere else. See our privacy policy.

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF

A site visit is the real answer — but if the trip to Kya Sand doesn't fit your calendar yet, here's a walkthrough of the site and a finished unit, narrated on camera.

For investors

For those who couldn't make it

DUE DILIGENCE

What a serious partner asks before signing anything.

Who exactly are UDRS?
United Dream Rivers Services NPC is a registered South African Non-Profit Company and an approved Public Benefit Organisation (PBO 930091096) working in Kya Sand and surrounding settlements — and welcome in any of South Africa's 4,200+ informal settlements, and beyond. Our people, history and governance are on the who we are page.
Is our contribution tax-deductible?
Yes. Section 18A of the Income Tax Act lets South African taxpayers claim a deduction for bona fide donations to an approved Public Benefit Organisation — UDRS is one (PBO 930091096). For a company, the deductible ceiling is 10% of taxable income for the year; you can give up to that limit, or whatever percentage of it makes sense alongside your other causes, and we'll issue the Section 18A certificate against it. The R150–R2 500 amounts on our donate page are sized for individual donors, not corporates — a contribution at this scale is a separate conversation, and it's the one we'd rather have with your finance team directly.
How do we know the housing pilot is real?
Every photograph on this page is a UDRS unit, and you're welcome in Kya Sand to stand in one. We'd strongly prefer a site visit before any commitment — it answers this question better than any document could.
What's the minimum to be useful?
There isn't one. A pallet of blankets, a delivery vehicle for a Saturday, or a multi-year housing commitment all get used. Tell us the order of magnitude and we'll tell you honestly what it changes.
What reporting do we get?
Written reporting on where the contribution went, photography and footage you can use in your own annual reporting, and a named contact for questions in between. Frequency is whatever your governance requires.
Can we ring-fence what we fund?
Yes. Contributions can be designated to a specific programme, a specific unit, or a specific settlement, and reported against that designation.