Life Line Education Center - Eastern Gouta The ongoing conflict in Syria has caused damage to public buildings and rendered many unusable.  The conflict has also had devastating effects on the education sector, resulting in a number of issues from high levels of illiteracy to “lost generations” of youth who have missed critical years of education.  In Saqba, a besieged area of Rural Damascus, the issues are particularly unique.  As a besieged area that borders the Government of Syria’s borders, it is virtually cut-off from all sides.  
School infrastructure and a safe learning environment are critical to the education of children and youth and the stability of a community. In 2015, Auranitis Lifeline established an educational center in Saqba that focused on non-formal education and psychosocial support, however, in order to better accommodate the growing educational needs and challenges, the center requires further rehabilitation and support.
The aim of this project is to empower Auranitis’ non-formal, underground (See Annex 4 for more information on the center), educational facility in Saqba in order to mitigate the effects of the damage to the educational system on children and the community.  The project will implement a comprehensive intervention that approaches the rehabilitation of the facility and sector in a holistic manner.  The intervention will address the following components:
Rehabilitation: The center will be rehabilitated in order to accommodate more students and so that the center can be accessed by students of all abilities (inclusive of disabled students).  The rehabilitation will also ensure that there are enough and separate facilities for female and male students.  
Community Engagement and Promoting Women’s Agency: Engagement and participation of the community will take place on all levels, from the rehabilitation of the center to the Back to Learning campaign.  Additionally, Auranitis will help to establish a Women’s Education Initiative Volunteer group.  The purpose of this group will be to coordinate with local community groups and officials on the importance of education, the benefits of education for girls, participate in supporting the center through the collection of real-time monitoring information, and coordinate with Auranitis and center staff in decision making about the activities and future direction of the center.  This portion of the project will be guided by the INEE policy brief on Promoting participation: Community contributions to education in conflict situations.
Back to Learning Campaign: The BTL campaign will target students who are interrupted, those who are attending school but falling behind, and those who are dropouts.  The campaign will also target local community leaders, school administrators, families, and IDPs in collective centers within the Saqba area.  As there are a greater number of girls than boys in Saqba, the focus on the campaign will be to encourage girls and their families to continue their education.
Standardized Non-Formal Learning Curriculum and Support: The final component of this project is to implement a non-formal learning curriculum and psychological support for students attending the center.  The SLP curriculum, developed by UNICEF and UNRWA, will be used as it is recognized and approved by the Government of Syria and has been used successfully in previous projects.  Auranitis’ Master Trainers (operating the SLP Program in Daraa and Quneitra) will conduct the training of teachers in the Saqba center remotely and the materials will be printed in Saqba as it is a besieged area that prohibits the transport of materials to the location.  Auranitis will also train 4 facilitators on the psychosocial support program, designed by Save the Children that has been successfully implemented in other projects. 
The project will be divide into three phases that will take place over a 7-month period.  Each of these phases will contain elements of a gender-responsive design and a participatory approach