While I was in Syria, our work focused uniquely
on the 4 days of training, with 2 days prep in advance, which was essentially a
weekend anyway. The “shuttle” schedule to cross the border emphasizes
crossing the border on Thursdays to create efficiencies, and although they can
organize drivers on other days, we didn’t want to inconvenience them. So we
traveled Thursday to Thursday, and therefore was unable to do any site visits
and see any of our program work being implemented. I was pretty disappointed,
so instead I set about trying to learn a bit about our work and about the
people who implement our work.
As I noted in an earlier post, our work in NE
Syria focuses on a few types of programs. One is what we call emergency
response- this is delivery of basic need supplies to people who are IDPs -
internally displaced persons - or in Iraq, also refugees from another country.
The fighting in Syria continues today in central and western Syria, as the
Syrian government forces try to finish off ISIS forces which have infiltrated
the country. In the early years of the war, the conflict was originally about
the Syrian rebel forces trying to oust Asad’s Syrian government regime, which
pitted Russian and US coalition forces against each other as well. In the midst
of that mess, ISIS entered the conflict, trying to profit from the chaos for
their own cause. Today, Asad and his government forces have regained
control of a portion of the country, and a stable but precarious agreement has
been made with Kurdish forces in the North East (including Derik area).
Although all kinds of foreign influences continue to play in the Syrian sandbox
(the US, Russia, Iran, Iraq, other European and Middle Eastern forces), many
parts of Syria are now more stable than before, and the Syrian government is
working to eradicate the last of the ISIS fighters.
My rudimentary summary here is relevant because
it means that people in different parts of the country have very different
needs, and our support for them has to be based in on-the-ground real time
information, and it has to be multi-faceted and intentional, depending on the
need. Thus, we see Syrians who are living in places in, or very near to the
active conflict, plus those who have fled their homes but are living in camps
or host communities inside Syria, and have almost nothing, and depend on
humanitarian aid for food, water, hygiene supplies, sometimes blankets or tents
(NFI is a term we often use for basic need “non-food item”). Our agency, along
with many others working here, will conduct distributions of basic supplies,
based on very carefully crafted lists of people who have the highest need and
vulnerability, because it’s often not possible to provide services to every
person in a community. In Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon (and previously also in
Turkey), we also support to refugees who fled Syria and managed to cross the
border and ended up in a refugee or host community there. Mercy Corps is one of
the largest implementers of humanitarian aid to the Syrian crisis in the
region.
In addition to our work that is first response,
basic need focused, we are also working on longer term recovery programs at the
same time- to give people a foundation to build their lives back on. We are
rehabilitating water system points, so that we can help communities transition
from having to truck water in, to going back to using water from functional
pipes and faucets in their homes or at least neighborhood water points. One
problem with war is that infrastructure like water, sewer and electrical
systems get destroyed and it’s a lot of work to rebuild them all. Typically,
our water rehabilitation work will come with hygiene promotion training and
messaging- it’s critical to remind families of basic practices like handwashing
in situations like this, because disease can spread so quickly. Farms and
farming equipment, and other small business supplies- think bakeries, shops,
warehouses, any supply chain for goods- also all need to be re-established and
rebuilt in order for a local economy to come back to life. Based on needs
assessments, we also do what’s called unconditional cash transfers- giving cash
to families and businesses to use the local market to rebuild their farm or
small business. The idea is that people know best what they need to spend money
on, when, and why. That only works when the market is starting to come to life
again and there are things to buy. In some cases, we provide vouchers instead
of cash, and in some cases we will support the value chain importing of key
equipment and supplies needed, if the local economy hasn’t done so yet.
Somewhere in our formal media publications there are probably some good,
detailed profiles of our work and stories of families. If I think of it, I’ll
link them here.
Because I wasn’t able to go to our program sites
and see the work myself, I sought to learn a little more about the people who
manage these programs. In our training group, we had about equal parts program
managers, who plan, lead and manage these different components of our work,
divided into 3 key areas of emergency response, livelihoods, and water,
sanitation and hygiene promotion (“WASH”). The other portion of the group was
the monitoring and evaluation team, those who manage and maintain all of the
details of what we’re doing where, who is eligible to receive what, who
actually received what, the measurements of what difference it made and any
feedback on our work, and all the data that we use to track that. And we had a
couple senior managers of the whole area, as well. I decided to interview and
profile a few of them, to at least be able to share a bit about our team. I’d
promised our communications team at HQ that I’d do a little story work for
them, since they aren’t able to send people out very often. So this was about
the best I could offer. (stay tuned on whether any photos I took or stories I
write actually get anywhere).
I interviewed 4 different Syrian staff, and then
a couple of our expatriate staff. As I started interviewing our Syrian staff, I
kept thinking I’d hear these really emotional stories, that they’d talk about
their work with the people we’d serve, and tell me all about the activities we
do and the people they’ve met. You know, I’d get sort of a second hand
experience about our work through their storytelling. And yet, what I kept
hearing was them telling me about their detailed office work, managing the
documentation, the lists, the data, every signature, every receipt. Building
and scaling a database tracker, even inspecting all the goods before the
distribution, to make sure the expiration dates are good, and the supplies are
the right quality. I asked them the hardest part about their job, and the best
part of their job. I even asked them if there were moments when they knew that
their jobs were really contributing to making a difference to the people we
serve. I waited for an emotional or passionate soundbite. And yet, I
heard all about how important it is to get the documentation right. How hard it
is to validate each list with each thing distributed- NFI, cash, vouchers,
etc., and make sure each item matches with the right people and is received by
the right people. I heard about the challenge with data entry and about the
volume of work they had, with so many activities happening at the same time and
the importance of processing the data and paperwork quickly, often finishing up
the files and paperwork late into the evening.
When they talked about interacting with program participants, they
described their role in making sure the participants understood the system,
where to go, what papers to bring, and explaining why certain people were
chosen over others- the very personal side of communication of all the details
they are guardians over. And when I asked them the best parts of their job?
They all said, getting it right.
It dawned on me that these are exactly the kind
of people that we want and need on the front lines. They embodied a culture of
caring, that even the details of the paperwork mattered- it mattered for
accuracy of our work, for transparency, for integrity. At first, it sounds like
a mind-numbing, bureaucratic machine of sorts- and it kind of is- but it is
also what makes our work trustworthy and ensures that we get all the right
stuff to the right people at the right time, and have a paper trail to prove
it. The other thing that dawned on me is that these people are seven years into
a war- they’ve all lost friends and family and if they haven’t been displaced
themselves, they know plenty who have been, and they’ve felt the impact on the
economy and infrastructure right in their own town. Many of the young men on
our team are working long hours for us, and then studying at night. If they
continue to take courses in pursuit of higher education, they can defer
military conscription. So the emotionality of the conflict is not something
just worn on their sleeves, it’s normalized by now. I have to imagine that deep
down they have touching personal experiences with the people we serve, but it
seemed to me that they’re less driven by the same heroic sense of philanthropy
that I’d first assumed. They do the jobs they care about, they know how
important their piece of the puzzle is to the wider work, and continue moving
forward doing it the best way they can. For that I’m grateful, and in awe.
PHOTOS:
Ronak Omar,
based in Derik but from a small town called Quamshly. She is a Data Quality
Assistant. She visits her parents and siblings on the weekends, and in her
spare time is taking classes, such as English, GIS and Photoshop. “When we
get the hard copy, we count distributions, whatever kind, we check the number,
signature, we compare between the program and finance reports- and find
inconsistencies or mistakes and work with various teams to reconcile it-
livelihoods, emergencies. When you get the good results and the coordinators
confirm the result is okay and is perfect - it is good.”
 |
| Ronak Omar |
Hozan Khalife, originally from and also based in Derik. He is a Program Support
Coordinator, working across all the programs. In his spare time he loves
football (soccer) and supports Barcelona. He has a wife and two children, ages
3 and 5 years old. “Honestly I do a lot of the work after work time- working
a lot of evenings and weekends. Sometimes it’s hard to say what is work- in
February I spent 3 weeks of the month outside of the home in other towns, just
working with partners, doing reconciliations, attending distributions- I know
I’m not spending as much time with my children, but you have to make work a
priority sometimes, it needs to be done. Friday is off limits though- all for
the family.”
 |
| Hozan Khalife |
Rafaa Ali is from a small town outside of Derik, and is based in Derik but works often in Mabadaa, Jawadiyah and some other locations. She is Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Assistant. On the weekends she visits her family, takes English classes, and walks an hour a day for sport. “For example, when I go to some places, I know how to dress and get to know the people, how to talk to with them. We have a community feedback (“CARM”) system if people have feedback and they can tell us that way. So I take the CARM books with me and explains the system to them. Sometimes when I meet the beneficiary, I look at what they need, take feedback from them, gives that info to the monitoring (“MEL”) officer, and explain that this area needs more assistance, give ideas for other activities they need.”
 |
| Rafaa Ali |
Like I did with everyone, I asked Ibrahim to
tell me something about him personally, a hobby he has or what he does when
he’s not working. He responded by telling me this: “I’m musician- I play a Kurdish
instrument called the Bouzouki. When we fled from Kobani, I wasn’t working for
Mercy Corps, I just went to Turkey and joined Mercy Corps there, and then after
liberation I was sent back to Kobani to work. When I returned to my home, I saw
on my house some graffiti, they’d burnt my house and my bouzouki- and accused
me of being against religion because I’m a musician. When we had fled, my child
was only 13 days old, what would we do? I happened to meet 3 international
people in Turkey and they were asking for English speakers, and we had a
conversation and they explained they are Mercy Corps and are looking for some
people to work with them- so it really worked out.”
 |
| Ibrahim Kader |
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