CLUSTER - Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training, Environmental Research

This exhibition will showcase the first prototype of the Community Care Vehicle, and contextualize its development in Cairo through the conceptual framework of “Grounded Urban Practices”.

The Community Care Vehicle has been in development since 2023 with the aim to ultimately provide emergency medical care and medical transport to underserved communities in the Egyptian capital and beyond. In Cairo’s informal and rural areas medical facilities are few and far between, while their narrow streets are often inaccessible to ambulances and similar emergency vehicles.

The Community Care Vehicle has been designed by the leading design initiatives CLUSTER (from Cairo) and AP+E and Studio René Boer (both from Amsterdam), based on CLUSTER’s many years of experience working in the informal neighborhood of Ard-al-Liwa and similar self-built neighborhoods in Cairo. The vehicle consists of the widely available motorised tricycle as a base, on which a locally manufactured medical unit has been attached.

Currently, a prototype of the Community Care Vehicle is being tested by local medical centers in Ard-al-Liwa and already receiving enthusiastic reviews. The vehicle can provide medical transport to major hospitals in case of emergency, as well as non-emergency medical transport to local health clinics. It also contains lightweight equipment to carry patients to the vehicle.

The Community Care Vehicle will be licensed as a Creative Commons, encouraging others to further develop the vehicle in a collaborative spirit. To this end, CLUSTER, AP+E and Studio René Boer are excited to present the vehicle at the World Urban Forum, hoping to inspire other parties with an interest in improving health and well being in local urban communities as outlined by SDG 3 and 11.