About Us and Our Purpose

Addressing The Unaddressed is a nonprofit social enterprise founded by Alex Pigot and Tina Roche.

Our purpose is to provide a unique (postal) address to people who live in dwellings of unplanned settlements such as slums, shanties, semi-permanent campsites etc.

Addressing the Unaddressed was set up in response to the Universal Postal Union's “Addressing the world: an address for everyone” initiative.
https://www.upu.int/en/publications/addressing/addressing-the-world-an-address-for-everyone
This initiative focuses on creating synergies between UN agencies, inter-governmental organizations and any other interested parties. The ultimate goal is to provide everyone with an address.

Our work will aid in achieving UN Habitat's Sustainable Development Goals.
https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Our Method

We use PlusCodes by Google:
https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/
to assign unique addresses to dwellings.

In 2018 Google created a mobile phone app which mimicked our addressing methods. That app is called AddressMaker and anyone who wishes to copy our work can get that app here https://support.google.com/mapcontentpartners/answer/11165614?hl=en.

Our Vision

Having a physical unique address enables a citizen to partake with relative ease in the necessary day to day activities such as social welfare entitlements, utility supply , schools, healthcare services or even to run a business. Having a unique address basically enables one to have an identity.

This is particularly true for those people who are recognised as being in the ‘base of the pyramid’ (BOP). There are almost 1 billion people worldwide categorized into this group living on less than $2.50 a day in urban slums.

Our vision is for any person who does not have a unique address, and especially those living in unplanned settlements (such as slums, shanties, rural villages) and who wishes to have an address, may have one.

The technology used will be of the most up to date 21st century technology that is user friendly, efficient and which is future proofed.

Our vision is informed by our belief that an address is an essential attribute for any citizen and that having an address is fundamental to citizenship, democracy, social justice, equality and is a basic human right.