Syria country programme
PATRIR has been working inside Syria since 2016 with a consortium of international and local partners, in order to provide professional capacity building training for civilians remaining behind, including many IDPs. We conducted in-depth needs assessments in order to ascertain the skills most relevant for the current context, as well as those which they could carry forward in the event of a post-war transition phase.
The results of the needs assessments showed us the need for local Syrians to have capacities in data collection, in order to document atrocities, number of children and adults requiring psychosocial care, number of youth out of school and requiring specialised education, number of widows requiring assistance, number of injured requiring disability aid, etc. Syrians need to have the skills to rebuild relationships across their communities, of which the social fabric has been shattered. They need peacebuilding and conflict resolution skills to be able to deal with their own conflicts effectively, without external intervention, as we have seen in this case just how costly that intervention can be. And they need the knowledge and skills of good governance, in order to support inclusivity of women and youth in the decision-making processes, as well as developing a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the democratic process.
The participants in this current programme of trainings are all adult professionals, as we seek to identify potential change-makers in their local communities- those with skills which we can build on, and with a certain status which will allow their skills to be multiplied. They include businesspeople, engineers, teachers, and civil society professionals.
Following their completion of training, we manage a mentorship phase, through which the participants are guided and coached by our professional and Arabic-speaking mentors. Our mentors are helping them to develop proposals for local actions or micro-projects which they can implement in their communities, using the new skills they have learned. In this way, we are able to reach far deeper in Syria than most given the current situation. We are very careful to do no harm, never mixing groups where there could be a danger, and we work closely with parters on the ground.
Finally, a selection of these local actions will be implemented within Syrian communities in order to help the populations heal, rebuild relationships, and lay the initial groundwork for a future transition. Some of these local actions include centres for psychosocial support for youth, and community education programmes. Due to the sensitive nature of our work in Syria, we cannot always reveal details of such activities, as the security of our stakeholders is paramount.
The aim of the Syria Country Programme is to address, support and facilitate post-war transition processes at community-level in Syria and to support Syrian professionals to become key-actors in their field of expertise and actively contribute to the long-term transition process in the country. The team is working on strengthening local communities and civil society’s capacities to cope with the very fluid and conflict driven environment in the region.
The Syria Country Programme Team will use the full spectrum of PATRIR’s operational capabilities from research to training, peace operations, awareness raising, mobilization, and building of multi-stakeholder partnerships in order to prevent violence, to build collaborative spaces and initiatives to address conflicts constructively, and to strengthen the development of sustainable and standing infrastructure for peace within each community.
The projects implemented are part of PATRIR’s global mission to transform the way the world deals with conflicts, working from the local to the global levels in partnership with communities, countries, and national and international organisations to make peacebuilding the basis for sustainable peace.
We have been providing trainings on these topics from 2016-2018, both inside and outside Syria, in order to reach as many civilians as possible, and accommodate for those living in both government-held and non government-held areas.
Strategic objectives
The overall objective is to support the transition process towards a peaceful, democratic and inclusive Syria. Whereas, the more specific objective will focus on empowering committed, skilled Syrian professionals – including in-country, exile and returnee citizens – to become key actors in their field of expertise and actively contribute to the peacebuilding process in their country.
Participants & Target group
- Syrian Professionals:
- working locally in Syria,
- already active from outside Syria and/or
- willing to resume their professional activity.
All the selected candidates will benefit from a tailored support that will start soon after the completion of their training sessions. This part of the project will see the implementation of networking, distance mentoring, coordination and knowledge management to foster continuous learning processes and to support their professional activities on the ground.
Activities
This programme has three main phases. The first phase involves preparing a need assessment. The second phase involves the selection of participant trainees and the implementation of training units. Finally the third phase will focus on the Mentorship/Follow-up of the candidates’ needs/projects.
This programme is strictly relying on the potential of the Syrian professionals, hence the team will pay particular attention to develop a solid merit-based recruitment process.
Results and outputs
- Support key-actors to hold an active role in the current Syrian context
- Improvement of local Syrian professional’s skills to better cope with in-war and post-war transition challenges
- The selected Syrian professionals will upgrade their work towards a transition-wise and transition-sensitive performance that will strongly contribute to the recovery of the local society
- Another major expected result is the establishment of follow-up, knowledge management and networking mechanisms supporting the Syrian professionals in order for them to undertake effective sustainable performance on the ground
Syria briefs
Here you will find our internal Briefs on news from Syria, along with a featured Peacebuilding Corner. Please feel free to email us at [email protected] with any submissions, which we will feature if relevant.
Please note that PATRIR as a peacebuilding organisation is neutral and uses a variety of sources to produce these Briefs as informative updates for those working in the peacebuilding field.
If you want to know more, please write an email to: [email protected].
