Living close to the Gaza Strip in Israel within range of Hamas rocket attacks brings its own challenges. This is why the majority of well educated young people from Sderot, a town close to the country’s volatile border region leave to find a better quality of life elsewhere. But a group of students has set out to change all that with the help of several shipping containers.
Sderot is a town that lends itself well to metal structures. Buildings in the town are within range of Hamas rockets when trouble flares up and any protection from explosions is welcome.
This is perhaps why students who remained in the town have been inspired to put together a student village made from shipping containers that offer strength and protection in equal measure.
Ayalim is Israel’s largest youth organization, has an answer: construct sustainable housing out of them, and rent them out cheaply to students in development towns.
The Sderot project is one of 12 such student villages recently constructed in the area with the Sderot village containing 36 units stacked three stories high with the capacity to accommodate two students in each one.
Plans are in place to expand the number of shipping container units to 150 when it is complete with every other unit featuring a bomb shelter – such is the ever present dangers of living in the town.