Happy Boxing Day!

We celebrate today* by taking stock of another incredible year of building change around the world. This is the 14th edition of this letter and returning readers will know - grab a mug of tea, a few left over snacks and settle in for our year in review.

Happy Boxing Day everyone!

I've written this letter every Boxing Day for the past 12 years, a day to traditionally give back to those in service and the communities they serve. If you believe in building a more sustainable future, please make an end of year contribution to allow us to continue our work. You can sponsor a week, a day or even a meeting of design with one of our building professionals - and if you missed someone on your holiday list you can gift a donation in their name or for an upcoming birthday.

Hi there,

Our annual Boxing Day* letter is great way to reflect upon what we have achieved over the past twelve months. So grab a hot drink, curl up on a seat and settle in.

I may be biased but as we enter our twelfth year no one exemplified the power of good design to uplift lives more than Architecture for Humanity's thousands of volunteers, local chapters and design fellows.

Dear all,

It has been a busy twelve months in our office but even more so in the field. On December 5th we saw the opening of yet another building, the Khayelitsha Football for Hope Centre, the first of many youth sports facilities built as legacy projects for the 2010 World Cup*. Below is a list of all the projects we've worked on this year. They involved dozens of architects and building professionals and hundreds of local construction workers. We are truly proud of all of them.

It is only because of the dedication of our partners and our donors that we are able to achieve this level and quality of work. For the first time in our history we had projects under construction on every corner of the globe.

To all who contributed in 2009, thank you.

Dear all,

It's been another busy year. With projects in places as farflung as Nairobi, Kenya; Hyderabad, India; and the Gulf Coast in the U.S., just coordinating time zones for conference calls took some doing.

We grew from about 41 chapters to 135 chapters in more than 25 countries, all undertaking their own exciting projects. Our staff also doubled from six to 12 people, and we welcomed more than 41 design fellows and volunteers compared with 12 last year.

A heartfelt thank you to all of our donors, sponsors, volunteers and to our staff, without which none of this would have been possible.

Dear all,

2007 was an incredible year for the organization. It's hard to believe that in just 12 months we have completed our 100th project - compared with just 7 two years ago - more than 14,000 people directly benefited from built solutions and we provided professional design services on four continents, with over 250 volunteers, designers and architects.