Pilot Shelter Solutions for the most vulnerable newly displaced groups. The humanitarian situation across northwest Syria, particularly in Idleb and Aleppo governorates continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate due to ongoing violence and this project aims to provide key and complementary services to cover the immediate shelter needs of the most vulnerable newly displaced groups, supporting their resilience with a better-dignified shelter solution and piloting new shelter concept to enhance the living standards of the camps inhabitants and to reflect better practice on the usage and the duration of the Refugee Housing Units.

One basic target is to ensure that IDP households will benefit from this shelter with three years of free accommodation as it is the minimum age of the provided RHUs considering its flexibility and ability to be assembled/disassembled to reallocate to another location.

It is also to respond to the Shelter/NFI sector objectives to “Provide life-saving and life-sustaining shelter and NFI support / Reinforce an enabling protection environment and community cohesion by improving housing and related community/public infrastructure”.

The shelter is the most urgent need, as millions of people have been pushed into small areas not equipped to support that many people, especially during the cold winter. While the direct exposure to hostilities continues to pervade the protection environment in northwest Syria, the escalation of hostilities has taken a toll on the provision of Shelter and health support for the affected IDPs and host communities.

The main outputs of this project are:
1- Provide 500 Refugee Housing Units for 500 Households (3,000 individuals) to support hosting the newly displaced households who do not have a safe and secure shelter.

2- Improve the camp management quality in and accountability of IDP sites by training camp inhabitants to establish services committees and maintain the daily needs in IDP sites including First Aid Training, Protection mainstreaming, Safe uses of water, hygiene promotion activities, fire-fighting training, and governance outreach.

3- Provide complementary aid including:
- Distribution of 500 NFI kits for the camp arrivals.
- Monthly distribution of Food Rations to cover the food needs of the camp inhabitants.
- Provide safe water trucking services for five months for all the targeted beneficiaries.
- Provide solid waste management and desludging activities to support better sanitation and to avoid water-borne diseases.
- Provide protection services and ensure better GBV risk outreach and understanding of the purpose of the protection provided activities.

4- Coordination with other active partners and clusters to cover the education, health and livelihood services as well as sharing all the related information with key related clusters and stakeholders.

After coordinating with local actors, WATAN Foundation has managed to secure three public lands (2 in Aleppo - 1 in Idleb) to be targeted with this project.
After conducting the HLP checklist, get the approvals, and taking into consideration the security situation and the availability of the nearby services and water wells, the best choice was Akhterin - Aleppo.
The area is 150,000 square meters of public land (36°29'19.04"N -  37°23'37.05"E) and it is considered safe and it is located at a far distance from the front lines.
WATAN Team can relocate the same project and the project activities in any other public land with clear HLP due diligence and documents.

Taking into consideration the Shelter/NFI and CCCM Clusters' priorities, WATAN Foundation can provide normal tents instead of RHUs if the implementation of the pilot shelter is not considered to be
appropriate in the current response.

As the on-going Coronavirus continues to develop where camps and gathering places consider more vulnerable to host, this project will follow WHO recommendations strictly supporting the emergency preparedness and response.