Harem Emergency Life-saving Protection Project (HELP) In line with the Protection Cluster priority areas, Global Communities (GC) will provide critically needed Protection services to an estimated 31,795 vulnerable people in Harem district, Idlib, Northwest Syria. 

Global Communities implements integrated protection services to prevent, mitigate, and respond to harm, exploitation, and abuse for the most vulnerable boys, girls, men and women in northern Syria. We have been implementing Protection, Child Protection (CP), Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and Mine Action prevention and response activities in northwest Syria since June 2016. Currently, we provide protection services in Idleb Governorate, Harem District, including through 5 Mobile Teams and 9 center-based expansion staff with THF funding under the PRIMES program. In addition, we have 11 static facilities – where the expansion staff are stationed – and 8 mobile teams funded by OFDA in Dana sub-district in Harem District.

Given the critical, life-saving nature of these interventions, GC is urgently seeking Turkey Humanitarian Fund to continue and expand the services established under the THF PRIMES program. This will cover the existing specialized and non-specialized protection services through static and mobile teams, expansion of the coordination focal point role of GC, and adding new mobile teams and static facilities in new areas. The current PRIMES-funded center-based expansion staff will transition to our OFDA funding for the relevant centers at the end of the PRIMES project and will not be included under the HELP project.  

Under the HELP project, we will extend the essential protection services in Harem District to provide:
-Specialized and non-specialized protection services through static facilities and mobile teams, including PFA, PSS, awareness raising activities, referrals and case management
-Distribution of in-kind protection materials in coordination with UNFPA and UNICEF
-Community-based protection initiatives, such as Women’s Committees and Child Protection Networks
-Capacity building to protection and non-protection actors, to improve the overall protection environment and ensure referrals between organizations
-Protection needs assessments in coordination with the Protection Cluster initiatives, such as Protection Monitoring
-Coordination with protection and non-protection actors, serving as the district level emergency response focal point for Harem District

These activities will be implemented through 7 Mobile Teams and 1 Community Center. From the 7 Mobile Teams, 5 are existing teams from the previous THF funding and 2 will be established based on additional identified need, as well as the new community center. Our teams will focus on outreach to new communities, schools, camps and informal settlements of IDPs. They will provide prevention and response services in protection, CP, GBV, and MA. 

The mobile teams and center will provide similar services, with only the center providing full case management services. The center will be open for boys, girls, men and women, with activities organized to ensure different groups are able to safely and comfortably access services.

While we will maintain our existing essential services for the already high number of vulnerable IDPs in the district, our teams will also be able to absorb additional beneficiaries if there is an acute emergency and activities need to be diverted to large numbers of new IDPs. This proposal therefore presents a comprehensive protection, MA, CP and GBV program accessible to the more than 600,000 people in need in Harem District, Idleb, northwest Syria. Global Communities will implement this project directly, drawing on our existing operational presence, relationships with camp management and local authorities, and capable staff in Harem District.