SOLIDARITY FOR GAZA FROM THE SYRIAN DISAPORA

NEAR spoke to Fadi Al-Dairi of Syrian diaspora humanitarian organisation HIHFAD about the need for solidarity and why localisation is still a priority in this current crisis. 

The continuing bombardment of Gaza has resulted in massive loss of civilian lives

When the bombardment of Gaza started three weeks ago, a member of my team asked if we would send a team to Gaza. And my response was: absolutely not! I am not going to establish a team in Gaza. We are going to support and work with a local NGO, which is something we learned through NEAR.  

We are fighting for localisation, so we should be supporting local NGOs. My role is currently only connecting donors or INGOs directly through NEAR to local Palestinian NGOs, and I think we should encourage more coordination like this. Several large donors have approached me, wanting to assist with the relief efforts for Gaza. We are facilitating relief with colleagues in Egypt and cooperating with the Egyptian Red Crescent convoy to facilitate delivery. 

You don't have to implement directly. We don't understand the local context, so we will rely on local coordination of local actors or local NGOs directly. Of course, we must do screening, we have to do a lot of vetting these days. But we can do it carefully and we can still deliver aid through the local NGOs. 

The challenge is that that local NGOs who are usually the first responders are now themselves victims, and in need of help.  This is what happened to us in Syria with the earthquake, and during the bombardment of Aleppo, with health facilities being the prime target for attacks. With these cases, you can't bring aid workers from outside because they don't have access, and the aid workers are displaced themselves, it's a dilemma.  

This is also why we are for now working through NEAR so that communication is centralised and we don’t overwhelm local leaders in Gaza even more.

We have heard with great dismay that some Western governments are freezing aid to Palestinian NGOs, especially those prominent in advocating for international humanitarian law.  I am so disappointed with governments who are usually strong advocates for human rights but now turn their backs on violations of basic human rights and ignore basic human needs. I am so disappointed to see organisations penalised for speaking up and calling for lives to be spared and for avoiding further escalation.  

I'm not sure of the reasons behind such a decision, but this will not be helpful in the long term.  There are desperate times that need unity and working together to ease the pain of civilians affected in Gaza, not time for more pressure on already exhausted communities. 

It is very important that we show our colleagues trapped in Gaza that we are concerned about them, and that we understand what they are going through. 

The head of a major Palestinian NGO said ‘I now know how Syrians feel now because I lost my home. I lost all my belongings and I left my home with the only the clothes I'm wearing’. 

My reply to him was ‘be ready, because next they're going to target schools and hospitals’.
Sadly, I was right. 

A FORCE FOR CHANGE

by Shaikh Maaz Tanveer, Head of Communication & Natural Resource Management at HANDS Pakistan

These are two stories about empowerment and determination and how women are powerful change agents in the communities of rural Pakistan. Shamshad Begum from rural Punjab province and Najma Rahu from Sindh province in Pakistan are part of the “Marvi” program, a brainchild of HANDS Pakistan. In Pakistan, the maternal mortality rate is high, so this program has been a game changer.

Marvi workers are change agents in their local communities who are trained to create awareness about mother and child health, family planning and reproductive health.   In Pakistani folklore, Marvi was a village girl who refused to marry a king but preferred to live a simple life in the village. In Sindh province the term Noor (light) is used for these women champions. Over 8000 Marvis or Noor workers are currently active in their villages, to bring prosperity back into their communities. 
 

Shamshad Begum in her family's vegetable garden @HANDS

Shamshad Begum had a close call with death after she suffered from health complications caused by giving birth at home without a skilled birth attendant. After the ordeal, she vowed never to let any other woman in her village suffer the way she did.

“The villagers told my husband to let me die. They discouraged him from taking me to the hospital because they thought that he would be wasting his money on me. To the villagers, I was just a child-producing machine, who had served her purpose. But fortunately, my husband didn't pay any heed to them and got me the healthcare that I needed. The sad part is, not all men in my village care about their women. Not all women in my community are as fortunate as me. This is why when the HANDS team approached me to create awareness about mother and child health in my village, my husband and I agreed wholeheartedly.

The three-day training program with HANDS prepared me to convince the villagers to give a gap between the births of children, and to use contraceptives. I have gone house to house to educate the villagers about the health issues that mothers face because of their young age, and because they are not allowed to recover from childbirth before bearing another child. 

To the villagers, I was just a child-producing machine,
who had served her purpose.

The villagers constantly argue with me and blame me for trying to finish off their generations. But I firmly tell them that we are only asking them to give some gap for the betterment of their women and children. We are not stopping them from having children. Something I said must have resonated with them because today, more and more women are being taken to the hospital to deliver their children. Where there is some resistance, I intervene. I am adamant that no more mothers will suffer. This is why in critical cases; I accompany some of the women to hospitals as well.

Not all women in my community are as fortunate as me. The pandemic may have stopped many things, but it has not been able to stop our work. HANDS gave me additional training regarding SOPs to follow when visiting women in the village. I also make sure that I guide these women on measures to take to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in their households.

My life has changed drastically since I joined HANDS as a Community Health Worker (Marvi/Noor). From being a simple homemaker, I am now helping my community be healthier and saving the lives of women and children."

Najma Rahu is determined that women should give birth safely @HANDS

 
“I was sitting idly at home and wanted to start a job to support my family. The conditions at home were poor with a meagre income to survive on. I also wanted to make a difference in my village which is in the district of Sujawal.

I realised that quite a few women in our village are facing complications or losing their lives during childbirth due to the lack of a gap between the births of children and deliveries being done at home, which distressed me. My dreams were big, but I did not have a way to fulfill them until HANDS came to our village four years back and showed me the way. 

After the flood devastation in 2011 our village was assessed by HANDS and during the large community meeting, I was selected as a community health worker also known as Marvi. Soon after, I was trained in basic health services, especially in mother and child health. Since then, I am known more as a Marvi than by my own name.

Four years down the road I have 100 clients, all deliveries are done in the hospitals, the quality of life of the people in the village has become better, and the average woman’s health has improved. On a personal level, my financial condition has improved, my 7-year-old son goes to school, I am able to look after my disabled mother properly and have a supportive husband who is by my side in all that I do. I also own a buffalo, do sewing and embroidery, and grow vegetables in my kitchen garden with the help of seeds provided by HANDS.

One part of my dream has been realised, but the other part of having a hospital in the village in front of our Marvi Center is yet to be fulfilled."

HANDS Pakistan is one of the largest non-profit organisations in the country, working since 1979, to approach development in a holistic way. Their programmes range from healthcare, education, livelihood, water & sanitation to community infrastructure and disaster management.
 

PRESSING FOR CHANGE

Women and girls in Taruwes Village, Mashuru in Kajiado East celebrate the visit of FODDAJ Director, Nancy Sitima, and Director of Adult Education, Mercy Niriri @FODDAJ

by Nancy Sitima, Executive Director, FODDAJ

The scorching sun on the plains of Kenya’s Kajiado County is unforgiving, as teenage girls and young women trek for miles across dusty, rugged and treacherous plains in search of water and firewood. Though visibly exhausted, the girls clad in Maasai shuka (cloth wrapper) cannot give up until they get water for their livestock and for domestic use. This is the plight of many girls and women in counties affected by the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa. 
 
The risks to girls’ personal safety includes rape and even attacks from wild animals. With one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country, many girls in Kajiado have dropped out of school because of the gendered burden of care, such as caring for children, the sick and the elderly, walking long distances in search for water and herding cattle. Disasters like droughts see an increase in migration as households seek food and pasture for their livestock. This disrupts basic services such as access to healthcare and reproductive health services. It also pushes many households to engage in forced or child marriage, and labour trafficking of women and girls. Women and girls are at a higher risk of gender-based violence during and in the aftermath of the disaster and have additional health and hygiene needs resulting from pregnancy, breastfeeding and managing menstrual hygiene. 

With one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country, many girls in Kajiado have dropped out of school because of the gendered burden of care

The Forum for Women in Development, Democracy and Justice (FODDAJ) is on the frontline of providing humanitarian relief, providing psychosocial support, emergency food distribution, community education and outreach. We work with communities to prevent the risks of violence faced by women and girls, and to ensure their needs are heard and met in emergency responses.
 
Our locally rooted approach and network of community health workers allowed us to rapidly provide relief and outreach to 10 community units in the vast Kajiado County within the first two months of the announcement of a climate disaster by the County Government. 
 
Local organisations like FODDAJ are not just the 'first responders' but also the 'sustained responders' in crisis-affected communities, yet they often face financial barriers that hinder their full engagement in the humanitarian sector.
 
As the crisis intensifies, we’re deepening the call for establishing equitable and equal partnerships that empower local communities to lead ways of thinking, working on and adapting good practice such as equal partnerships approaches, linkages to networks, donor referrals, mentoring and peer exchanges.  
 
As members of NEAR, FODDAJ collaborates with other members at the local, national and regional levels to create new pathways for collective action. As a local actor we are getting bolder in the way we demand and negotiate on decisions made about us. We are now more assertive in the way we can negotiate with our partners and demand for equality and respect in partnership approaches.  We have a track record and collective memory about disasters to share; we have appropriate contextual knowledge, oversight capacities, vast experience, grassroots presence, community linkages and we are trusted by communities we serve. 
 

BUILDING RESILIENCE THROUGH PARTICIPATION

We spoke to Abdissa Bekele, Programme Manager for Afro Ethiopian Integrated Development Association about building community resilience through community participation.

A woman and children collecting water from a community water point @AEID

“AEID was established in December 2003, so as you can see, we have been doing this for 20 years and have reached 3.7 million community members directly. This does not include the indirect impact. We are able to do this because we ensure impact through sustainability.
 
We work both in development and humanitarian response mostly in WASH, with Orphans and Vulnerable Children, protection, Emergency Shelter/Non-Food Items, Health, Education, Social Accountability, Multipurpose cash, and agriculture programs across four regions in Ethiopia: Oromia, Amara, Tigray and the new Southwestern Ethiopian People’s region.
 
We have been able to build community resilience by encouraging community participation at every step of the way. We involve them from project development to project implementation. Communities are involved in the project launching and all the workshops, and during the monitoring and reporting stages, we usually form a joint monitoring team with them.  If at any stage they have a question or a complaint or want to know if implementation is on track, they can ask for and receive the information.
 
Involving the community during project design means that we can understand their interests and feelings as well as their fears. This develops a sense of ownership amongst the community if the project is based on their interests, they perceive it as their property.  And most importantly this ensures the sustainability of the project for lasting impact.
 
As an example of a community that has built its own resilience, in 2018/19 we worked in Oromia (West Gujji) to implement an Emergency WASH Response project with ECHO for communities that had been displaced by conflict between the Gujji and Gedeo people. 

We rehabilitated water schemes, the electro-mechanical system, pipelines, and water points. We created separate latrines and shower spaces for men and women and also ensured the design could accommodate people with disabilities.

And then we trained technicians from the community to maintain the generators and solar power we use for some boreholes, and the generators we use for others.
 
In that project, the community was involved in each step of the activity. When we laid pipelines, they supported us in digging the ground. When we handed over the project, we also shared skills with them on how to use the pilot and ensure that the project continues to run successfully.
Until today that project is running successfully and delivering impact.
 
ABOUT AEID
AEID aspires to see Ethiopia that creates healthy and productive citizens 
To learn more visit www.aeid.org.et

"COMMUNITIES LEAD US"

We spoke with Guyo Denge, Executive Director of Community Initiatives Facilitation and Assistance (CIFA – Ethiopia) on how they build resilience by tapping into community knowledge and history.

“We were registered in Ethiopia in 2005 but we have a sister organisation which we were registered out of, working in northern Kenya which itself was registered in 2000.
 
We work in a pastoral context which mainly is related to the management of rangelands but also with human aspects. We work mainly on peace building and conflict resolution interventions, and also responding to the recurrent droughts. Currently we are active in Oromia region, specifically in Borana zone that lies directly across the Ethiopia - Kenya border, and we also work in East Hararge zone.
 
The Borana has a rich and well-preserved oral history. As the Borana are pastoralist and it is a very strongly traditional context, we also involve the traditional institutions like the Gada leaders who are the topmost of the hierarchy of the community. We also involve leaders who are in charge of rangelands at every village, at every location called Abba Dedhas and people in charge of water called Abba Heregas. Communities are the ones that lead us.

We are able to gather a history of the disasters that have struck over decades, how communities have been able to respond to these disasters, also maybe how the government has supported them and other development. We rank these disasters, particularly those that have impact on their livelihoods. Then we identify who specifically is vulnerable whenever these disasters occur.
 
They also identify which livestock are most at risk. Once we have identified the vulnerabilities together, we look at existing capacities. We identify required capacities and then the gaps between what is existing and what is required.  Using all of this information we work with the community to formulate the appropriate disaster reduction strategy for them.

Construction of an underground water tank at Ejersa village in Moyale District @CIFA

We then co-create a community action plan and also a community contingency plan, for when disasters strike. These two plans are then adopted at the community level. We also link and harmonise it with the government plans that are there at community level and then we move forward to implement it. As they implement the plans, they also monitor the progress of the plans adjusting them whenever necessary. The plans are documented and kept at the level of Community-Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) and can easily be shared with any relevant development actors – NGOs and the government. 
 
The long-term impact of this work has been sustainable livelihoods and saving lives and livelihoods in humanitarian situations. Communities have been able to activate their contingency plans and respond to emergencies. A good case is the Bokola community in Moyale district in the 2017 drought. 
 
In humanitarian emergencies – mainly droughts and conflicts - we’ve been the first responders in saving lives and livelihoods through interventions such as cash transfer programs, livestock feed and health interventions and water trucking. 
 
Whenever a development stakeholder comes into the community, we do ensure that these plans are shared with them, as well as other relevant government line departments. We've been doing it since 2013. It's quite innovative and it’s quite wonderful!"
 
ABOUT CIFA Ethiopia 
Our vision is peaceful, healthy, enlightened and self-reliant communities in Ethiopia.
To learn more about CIFA go to www.cifaethiopia.org

BUILDING HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

We sat down with Malek Alwadi from Binaa for Development to learn about their education infrastructure project with the Solidarity Fund.

BINAA teams hard at work repairing infrastructure @BINAA

"Binaa is an engineers’ organisation so most of our staff are engineers.
We work mainly in the shelter and WASH clusters on infrastructure.
Both inside and outside cities, we are working in rehabilitation and early recovery.
 
As an example, we have rehabilitated and extended sewage and water systems, installed water stations, and provided equipment like generators and pumps.  We are also proud to provide solar systems for theseprojects.
 
So, when the earthquake struck, we had the experience and the capacity to respond in several sectors. We started with debris removal from more than 10 communities.
We provided life saving assistance to earthquake survivors, such as fuel for heating, stoves and food baskets. We also built dignified shelters in Aleppo and Idlib, where we received more than 100 families in each site. We also worked to reopen roads that had been damaged in the affected communities.
 
We are currently conducting rehabilitation work for infrastructure like like schools and hospitals to ensure they are able to offer services to the community again.
 
We applied to the Solidarity Fund after we saw the call for proposals for LNNGOs working in Türkiye and Syria. We were awarded a grant to implement very specific activities.
The first is to rehabilitate two schoolsthat were damaged, first during the war in Syria, and then during the earthquake.  The school has 880 students, 412 of whom are female. After we have finished ensuring the structures and facilities are sound, we will also provide classroom furniture.

Another important activity is establishing a friendly space for the children affected by the earthquake. We will create and equip the space and a child protection specialist will run the space. The protection team may also make referrals if necessary, to facilities with more specialised care. We also have mobile outreach teams, which include female staff, who conduct awareness sessions for the children, women and the vulnerable.
 
The rehabilitation work will be done by July or August because the schools will open on the first of September, so we will conduct this campaign to encourage people to send their children to school.
 
Ahead of the start of the new academic year, there will also be training for teachers on how to be prepared and respond in emergency situations like the earthquake.
 
Our experience of applying for the Fund was simple and quick compared with other funding resources. Post-disaster interventions play a crucial role in facilitating the restoration of normalcy in the lives of affected individuals, with a particular emphasis on rehabilitating damaged infrastructures to resume delivering essential services to the affected population. Interventions such as this fund are of paramount importance as they enable communities to recover and rebuild after a catastrophic event, ensuring that people can regain a sense of stability and continuity. 

SOLIDARITY IN ACTION

The recent launch of the Solidarity Fund, coordinated by Syrian Networks League and NEAR, is already translating into action in the field for Fund grantee ELAF RD. We spoke to programme manager Ghazi Turkmani at ELAF to learn about their experience as a grantee.

“The Türkiye Syria Solidarity Fund is very important, because it came at a really early stage after the earthquake. It was very responsive as it served both of the affected countries, quickly.
 
Our proposal to the Fund was to rapidly distribute food baskets survivors of the earthquake in Northwest Syria and ensure this is done in an efficient and effective way to reach the communities most in need. A month after the earthquake it was Ramadan and most people in Syria are Muslims and were going to be fasting for a long time. So it was really essential to deliver aid quickly and the timing was very very important.
 
The application process was simple - everything was included in one place - and we used Submittable for our proposal with budget, location, service and targeted beneficiaries.  After two or three days, a committee from SNL and NEAR met to assess applications and within a week we learned we had received the grant.
 The deadline was short in order to respond rapidly, because the response from the donors to the Fund was very fast.
 
This Fud is very necessary because it not only supports local people but this response is done by people who know the communities and the needs in the field. This Fund supports localisation and this is a good example of what local organisations can do with rapid, flexible funding. The experience was good and the feedback is that we would like to know more about the composition of the Fund committee and their technical capacities.

ELAF field teams distributing emergency aid to earthquake survivors @ELAF

ELAF RD was established in 2014, encompassing 14 relief societies operating in Hama Governorate inside Syria. This union develops their collective efforts of, increases coordination and supports humanitarian work to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable groups living in crisis conditions as victims of the war. It was founded by a group of volunteers who have since worked tirelessly to meet humanitarian needs.
 
ELAF’s goal is communities where resilience and capacity are built through effective humanitarian interventions. The union’s strategy is to sustainably empower vulnerable and IDP groups, in particular elderly and women from hard-to-reach communities enhancing the individual and collective abilities of women and youth. They do this through encouraging community-led development processes and strengthening self-actualization that is developed to meet people's needs. 
 
ELAF RD has an office in Gaziantep and Antakya in addition to 5 field offices in Northern Syria. ELAF achieves its goals through quality-driven, purposeful, and diverse projects that are implemented in Syria and Turkey for the most vulnerable groups of IDPs and Refugees. Community development, empowerment of those in need, both technically and cognitively, providing basic needs for most vulnerable groups and establishing community development projects."

THE SOLIDARITY FUND: PROTECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE AFTERMATH OF A DISASTER

We sat down with Lubaba Alahdab, CEO of the Syrian Women Association to learn about the impact of the earthquake and their experience of applying for a grant.

The Syrian Women Association is an NGO led by women. It was founded in 2006 in Amman, staffed by volunteers, to provide social, cultural, and educational services to the many Syrian women, girls, and children in Jordan. In 2015, the association was legally licensed in Türkiye and has offices in Antakya, Gaziantep and an office in northwest Syria. The Antakya office was destroyed when the building collapsed in the earthquake.

“Our projects in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria focus on protection of women and children, education, psychosocial support, early relief and recovery, and training and development. We target children of both sexes, women (including widows), the elderly and girls and women with disabilities. In emergencies we provide basic relief needs such as tents, food baskets, hygiene and heating baskets, heating fuel and blankets.
 
Education is a key component of our projects, from teaching the children in camps to read and write, to women’s vocational courses which support productive small projects, to making women aware of the law and their rights.

We applied for the Solidarity Fund as we needed to move fast after the earthquake, because we are a local organisation, so we know what needs to be done.
 
The grant we applied for is to provide psychosocial support to children and women who have survived not just the war in Syria but the earthquake and the terrible, continuing aftershocks which continue to this day.
 
There is a great need for psychosocial support among survivors, and if they do not get the necessary support now, they could develop PTSD.

We run courses and support groups to provide these services but sometimes the parents don’t want to send their daughters because of the stigma. Because psychosocial care is related to mental health, there is still a stigma around it.
 

Psychosocial care for children after the earthquake @SWA

Our experience of the Solidarity Fund was that it moved super-fast. From the time we applied online to the date we were awarded the grant was nine days, and then we received the funds two days later.
 
This fund is necessary because this funding is considered a humanitarian response to the earthquake that occurred on February 6. The importance of this response is that it is quick and effective, as it was able to meet the basic needs of those affected by the earthquake and mitigate the negative effects that occurred on them based on the approved humanitarian standards.
 
The project provides awareness sessions on gender-based violence for men and women, as violence increases within the family and in the community in cases of disasters, especially in collective shelters.  Sessions were provided based on the standards of the gender-based violence sub-cluster and the adoption of the appropriate curriculum in cases of disasters and crises.
 
The project also focused on providing psychological first aid sessions to women and adolescent girls, as the earthquake caused panic and great fear. This is in addition to providing individual psychological counseling services to mitigate the negative psychological effects on those affected and so that they can continue their lives normally. 
 
The project also provided for a kit to meet basic personal needs of women and girls, which we called the Rose Kit, which includes clothes and personal hygiene items.
 
Our feedback for the Solidarity Fund is the process was fast and efficient and the funds were able to reach the affected people quickly and effectively. The Fund also contributes to the localisation process by directly financing local organisations operating at the forefront in emergencies.
 
 

NADINE SABA – GLOBAL SOUTH SHERPA

This week’s Grand Bargain Annual Meeting in Geneva brought together NEAR and several of its members and partners from the Global South.

A key member of the NEAR delegation was Nadine Saba – member of the NEAR Leadership Council and one of two Global South Sherpas. We sat down with her after the meeting to hear about her first Grand Bargain Annual meeting, her views on the process and her hopes for the next chapter.

How did you become involved in local leadership?

I’m from Akkar on the northern border of Lebanon, a region that has always been deprived of development opportunities and services. I’m a lawyer but have been working with civil society since 2006. I worked with an international organisation, with the donors, and then I moved back to Akkar and co-founded Akkar Network for Development (AND). It’s been a roller-coaster ride for the last 12 years.

When people ask me what our focus is, I tend to say, “our focus is Akkar”.

We do various kinds of programmes and interventions, but we don’t work outside this area. Our focus is truly local. We have a range of programmes, from tackling gender-based violence, to child protection, youth engagement and environmental sensitivity. It is also very important for us to work with the local authorities to have a real sustainable impact.

What does it mean to you to be a Sherpa?

Firstly, it’s about representation: ensuring that you get your voice across as representative of your constituency, which are the local actors in the Global South. But it is also a two-way street - you must be able to revert to your constituency and advise on what you are seeing and ask for their opinion. We need to ensure that the challenges faced by our members are highlighted and that policy, guidance or frameworks are responsive to those needs.

 On a personal level, I feel that in my work I tell women and girls to go ahead and take opportunities to grow, learn and contribute. So, I have to practice what I preach and role model female leadership.

The team from Akkar doing outreach activities

What was your sense after your first meeting this week?

To be honest, it made me wonder how much gets lost between our reality and these meetings in boardrooms.  We are not dealing with abstract numbers, we are dealing with people’s lives, with the possibility of making a real change in a real life. It is so important not to get lost in “the bubble” and always get a reality check. There is no survey or focus groups that can replace what you learn in the field, when you talk to people and look in their eyes.  My commitment to myself is not to lose sight of why I am sitting in the boardroom and what I bring there – the reality check!

This week we heard a lot about quality funding, partnerships and flexibility and so on, but I think it transcends that. It’s much more about a change in the mindset. There is a paradigm shift that local actors in the Global South are asking for: it’s about sharing power, about using influence and shaping the interventions. I cannot say we are changing the system at the moment because that mindset is still quite rigid, and it's been ingrained. However, we will do our best to ensure we never lose sight of the views and needs of local actors and the communities they serve.