About Dzaleka Spaces
Dzaleka Spaces helps people find trusted places to live, work, meet and operate businesses in Dzaleka Refugee Camp — while giving space providers simple tools to manage occupancy, payments and maintenance.
Why it exists
Dzaleka, in Malawi's Dowa District about 41 km from Lilongwe, was established in 1994 and designed for roughly 12,000 people. It now holds well over 50,000 — 57,438 were recorded in March 2025 — with around 300 new arrivals a month, mostly from the DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia. That pressure makes space scarce, and arrangements are made through word of mouth, WhatsApp groups and handwritten signs, with no way to confirm that a listing is real, fairly priced, or offered by someone authorised to offer it. Dzaleka Spaces adds structure and trust: in-person verification, zone-and-landmark discovery, written occupancy records and payment receipts.
Built for the camp's real economy
Residents cannot legally work outside the camp or own land, so a dense informal economy has grown inside it — clothes shops, bars, workshops, craft collectives, training rooms and community venues. Dzaleka Spaces is designed around that reality: it helps existing spaces be discovered and managed, rather than pretending the camp is a formal property market.
What we are not
Dzaleka Spaces is not a conventional real-estate company. It does not sell camp land, issue ownership certificates or make legal-title claims — refugees cannot own land or property in Malawi, and verification never confirms ownership. During the pilot the platform also never holds money: payments are recorded and receipted, not processed.
Part of the Dzaleka Online ecosystem
Dzaleka Spaces is built and operated alongside Dzaleka Online, Dzaleka Online Services, Visit Dzaleka (which runs the approved homestay programme) and DzalekaPay (whose payment references the ledger records). Field verifiers are residents who know their zones, landmarks and community structures.
Community governance
An advisory group of residents, women and youth representatives, space providers, community organisations and protection specialists reviews listing categories, verification requirements, complaints, pricing and data use. Residential listings remain switched off until written operational guidance authorises that pilot.
Dzaleka Spaces verifies listing details and a provider's stated authority to offer a space. Verification does not establish ownership of land or property.