---
title: "Living like a king"
description: "“Even if the whole family share a single room, it’s better than living in a tent. I feel like I’m living like a king.”"
url: "https://www.nrc.no/news/2017/august/living-like-a-king"
language: "en"
published: "2017-08-10T11:52:11Z"
modified: "2017-08-10T12:26:24Z"
---

NEW HOME: Salman outside his new home in Qushtapa camp in northern Iraq. Even if it just consist of one single room he is happy to move from a tent to a house made of concrete. Photo: Sarhang Sherwany/NRC

# Living like a king

Sarhang Sherwany|Published 10. Aug 2017

[Iraq](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=68) [Shelter and settlements](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=162)

This article was first published more than 9 years ago

“Even if the whole family share a single room, it’s better than living in a tent. I feel like I’m living like a king.”

Salman is one of the thousands of Syrian refugees who fled war to Iraqi where he lives with his family in Qushtapa camp in northern Iraq. He and his family used to live in a tent in the camp. They just moved in to a small house with a single room, byilt by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

“Refugee camps are the last place anyone wants to live. Thanks to NRC, we don’t have to”, says Salman, and shows us his new home NRC recently built for the family.

**NRC shelter in Iraq**

In the harsh and varied climates, shelter is essential for affected households to live safely and securely with privacy and dignity. Shelters provide families with an enclosed space where they can keep warm at night, guard themselves from the sun during the day, and help enable to achieve a sense of place and connection to the communities in which they reside.

### 102,950

In 2016 102,950 people benefited from our shelter programme in Irak.

**What we do:**   
• Building schools  
• Carry out social and technical shelter assessments for conflict affected households in both the camp and non-camp.   
• Enable households to make essential repairs - sealing off their shelters from the elements and addressing issues related to privacy, safety, and security - through the provision of materials, training and/or financial resources.  
• Improve shelter accessibility for persons with special needs.  
• Rehabilitation and upgrading of shelters to improve their adequacy in camps and in rural, peri-urban and urban areas.   
• In emergencies, distribution of emergency shelter (tents, shelter sealing off kits) and essential basic household items such as blankets, mattresses and heaters.

“Even if the whole family share a single room, it’s better than living in a tent”, he says and explanes:

### NRC saved our lives

“In the winter, It was cold and I was worried that the heavy rain would collapse the tent. I was also worried about the fire because we had to use the heater inside the tent to warm up. This was not safe”.

“ Before NRC came, I had felt that no one cares about us, but now I feel there are still people … who cares about our life and safety. These people (NRC staff) saved my life, now I am more comfortable,” he says.

“When I go out and look at my room that NRC built for us, I feel like I am a king. However, when I see other families who still live in a tent in the camp, I feel sad and I want to cry for them, because I know how hard is it to live in a tent.”