Everyone living in refugee camps should have a place to play.

Hi, we’re KLABU 👋🏼 We build sports clubs in refugee camps because we believe everyone should have a place to play.

Our clubhouses provide access to sports equipment and activities, live matches, music and Wi-Fi. They become welcoming places where people can play, cope and connect. Playing supports physical and mental well-being, resilience, life skills and pathways to employment. It also builds connections between refugees, host communities and the wider world.

From the very beginning, we work with and mentor people from refugee and host communities to lead the clubs themselves. This builds ownership, responsibility and pride, it’s their KLABU!

The name KLABU means ‘club’ in Swahili, we built our first clubhouse in Kalobeyei, Kenya, where everyone referred to it as their klabu. You can now find KLABU clubhouses around the world, from Kenya, Brazil and Jordan to our home city of Amsterdam. Our ambition is to ensure that everyone living in a refugee camp has access to a place to play. We know it’s big, but so are our ambitions, and the need for this club - there have never been more refugees in the world than today.

Every day, we see the difference sport can make through our clubhouses and programmes. We also see how it can rally support like nothing else. Our partners and supporters include UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency; sportswear company On; and architecture firm MVRDV. Together with MVRDV, we created a modular, multifunctional KLABU clubhouse that we can replicate around the world.

To carry out our mission, KLABU has a unique dual structure: a foundation and a social enterprise. The KLABU Foundation works with local communities to set up and run the sports clubhouses. Our social enterprise supports the foundation by creating and selling sportswear and collaborating with brands that help us grow our reach and impact.

We can’t do this alone. Join us, join the KLABU!