North Syria

Protection and Community Empowerment

Since late 2014, the IRC has tracked the
protection needs of over 51,000 people
across Idleb and Aleppo governorates,
connecting households to life-saving
services.
Photo: IRC Protection Needs Assessors meet with
community members in Idleb, North Syria to discuss their
protection concerns/ IRC 2016

In North Syria, families displaced by violence face

many risks, from losing access to basic services to losing civil documentation
such as birth and marriage certificates. IRC protection teams document
those risks, mobilize people to make their homes and communities safer,
and train other NGOs to consider rights, safety, and dignity when providing
shelter, housing, and education.
How We Help
Protection monitoring
Currently the only humanitarian agency conducting protection
monitoring in northern Syria, IRC has six protection monitoring
teams in four sub-districts in Idleb and Aleppo, with plans for two
more teams in another sub-district.

In one IDP camp in Idleb, the

protection team helped a
displaced widow with a disability
to obtain a much-needed
wheelchair. She expressed
overwhelming gratitude at her
new-found mobility that afforded
her better access to her
community.

The IRC conducts household and community assessments to

identify and report on the critical safety concerns and risks
displaced people face. These include issues such as freedom of
movement, access to documents such as birth registration, protection of special needs groups like
the elderly, exploitation and abuse, housing, land and property/evictions, and access to basic
services. Not only does this information improve the humanitarian response by identifying gaps
and needs for targeted advocacy, but it also allows protection teams to make direct referrals to
service providers.
Community mobilization and empowerment
Specialized community mobilization and empowerment
programs support and build local capacity for self-protection.
The IRCs protection team helped to form, train, and support 86
members of 12 Community Representation Committees (CRCs)
in displaced persons (IDPs) camps in Idleb. CRCs support IDPs
to organize and claim their rights and improve their communities.

In 2015, CRCs conducted advocacy

meetings and awareness campaigns to
improve hygiene and sanitation conditions in
camps, improve school attendance, promote
womens rights in the community, and
increase access to humanitarian services.

IRC Global Outcomes I Safety: People are free from harm where they live, work, and go to school I Rescue.org

North Syria: Protection and Community Empowerment

June 2016

CRC representatives are selected by community members to represent the diversity of their
communities and ensure all voices are heard. IRC trains committee members on leadership,
advocacy, protection principles, communication skills, basic gender-based violence and child
protection principles, psychological first aid, and other relevant topics that CRCs themselves
select. An IRC staff mentor coaches them through regular meetings to assess and identify
concerns that they want to address through awareness raising or advocacy. The IRC supports
these committees to play an active role as agents of change and community leaders by
developing project planning skills that will positively impact their communities.
Tracking civil documentation
Loss of civil documentation, such as birth, death, and
marriage certificates and family identification papers, has
created significant protection risks for displaced Syrians.
Obtaining or replacing these documents can often pose
a safety threat, but living as a displaced person without
them is also a serious protection risk.
In 2015, the IRC conducted an assessment to better
understand existing procedures and barriers to obtaining
official documents in areas of northern Syria not
controlled by the Government of Syria (GoS). The
assessment highlighted the reasons why people struggle
to register births and marriages in non-GoS areas, and
how to address this situation. In 2016, the IRC launched
a legal empowerment program that assists individuals to
know and exercise their rights by providing accurate and
timely information about documentation procedures. This
enables them to make informed choices about obtaining
personal status documents.

Recommendations:

The Protection Cluster should

promote and support a dedicated
space within coordination bodies
to facilitate further research and
programming;
Humanitarian actors should
urgently collect more information
on access to identity documents to
better understand the core issues;
International humanitarian and
donor community should increase
coordinated programming to
support better access to identity
documents, and,
Civil status documentation should
be urgently integrated into highlevel dialogue about the future of
Syria.

Protection mainstreaming
To help ensure that all humanitarian services such as access to water, health and education are delivered with the utmost care for individuals safety, well-being and dignity, IRC works with
local organizations to increase protection mainstreaming capacity. Protection mainstreaming
reduces risks to the people served in Syria by incorporating into all programs and services the
principles of meaningful access and nondiscrimination, safety, dignity, accountability, participation,
and empowerment. The IRC is also training local organizations on case management principles.

Impact and Innovation

The IRC is making measurable improvements in the safety of the people we serve, and moving
the humanitarian response in northern Syria forward with innovative training and collaboration:

The IRC trained four Syrian NGOs in protection mainstreaming and six Syrian NGOs on case
management principles in Aleppo, Idleb, and Hama governorates. In 2016, two additional NGOS
will be participating in the protection mainstreaming capacity building initiatives.

The IRC co-leads, in coordination with UNHCR, a protection monitoring task force to build the
capacity of other agencies to conduct protection monitoring and standardize tools and procedures
across northern Syria.

The IRC is conducting further in-depth research on civil documentation and are deploying trained
community paralegals to advise individuals about their rights to access to legal documentation.
For more information:
Kathryn Striffolino, Advocacy Advisor- Kathryn.striffolino@rescue.org and;
Emily Krehm, Protection Coordinator- Emily.Krehm@rescue.org

IRC Global Outcomes I Safety: People are free from harm where they live, work, and go to school I Rescue.org