Improving social inclusion and accessibility to humanitarian service of Syrian and Lebanese people with disabilities in  North Bekaa The proposed action will target the Syrian and Lebanese population in Masharia al Qaa and North Bekaa, providing preventive and responsive protection services tailored to specific needs of people with disabilities, as well as capitalizing lesson learned and advocate persons with disabilities in the humanitarian response. The protracted crisis has increased the exposure to vulnerability and risks of persons with disabilities and their family members either Lebanese or Syrians. As also reported in the VASyR 2016, women and children with disabilities are among the most vulnerable groups in Lebanon, facing a high level of discrimination and exposure to abuse, violence and exploitation, and a low inclusion in humanitarian interventions, while men whose injuries prevent them to access livelihoods opportunities increase, negatively increase stress. Hence, through this action GVC aims to complement the ongoing integrated protection programs which already includes WASH service support for persons with disabilities. The action will strategically address already identified protection gaps in access to services in North Bekaa, including Masharia al Qaa. In fact, this area showed in the last year an increased restriction in movements, check points control and ITS raids which access was limited to the humanitarian community. GVC is well established in the area and in 2016 was able to identify adults and children with disabilities through a protection right and need-based approach. Data and information collected led to consider an urgent protection-shelter response as urgently needed. GVC will implement the action with a local NGOs (Himam), experienced in working with youth in Qaa, currently in need of increasing expertise and capacities. GVC aims to support Himam in this process of empowerment through knowledge transfer in methodologies for inclusion, development of technical skills, resource management and cases management for people with disability within the communities, indeed this will guarantee a sustainable exit strategy. The capacity building plan for the local organization as well as GVC staff, will be done in collaboration with a specialized actor well-established in the area and with proven and stated experiences of capacity building, training, case assessment, response and follow up, the service will include the possibility of a specific follow up plan with case conferences and regular meetings. Under the project Outcome 1, GVC, along with the local partner, will provide specific assessment and case management of persons with disabilities, referrals will be done ensuring follow up, to competent national and international partners with proven capability to respond to the cases. The intervention will focus on improving individual capacity to respond and cope with the situation as well as will promote inclusion and access to services. This will be done through GVC protection methodology supporting community based mechanisms and family networks.
Particular focus will be done on the response action tackling improvement of shelter for what concerns barrier elimination and improvement of indoor shelter clima. Under the project Outcome 2, GVC will promote actions for mainstreaming disabilities in local planning while civilizing on ongoing actions and best practices. To this end, specific trainings will be implemented by specialized organization targeting staff and local partner, as well as for duty-bearers and stakeholders to improve their capacities to address the specific needs of people with disabilities and promote their inclusion in the Lebanese society. Moreover, a lesson learned paper will be produced, analyzing vulnerability and resilience factors faced by people with disabilities specifically in North Bekaa Capitalization of lessons learned will be published and disseminated, to raise attention and to provide updated and field data to relevant actors and stakeholders, including the humanitarian coordination system in Lebanon