Urgent needs

In an emergency situation, families often flee with little more than the clothes they are wearing and consequently find themselves displaced without any personal belongings. In addition to food, refugees and internally displaced people are in urgent need of basic necessities to survive, including blankets, plastic sheeting, mattresses, clothing, hygiene supplies, stoves and pots.

Our work

In partnership with the United Nations, we are the biggest distributor of basic necessities across northern Iraq. Our work includes distributing core relief items, communicating with people of concern and facilitating registration for winterization assistance. Our capacities, preparedness and ability to provide immediate response to emergencies have also enabled us to facilitate UNHCR’s distribution of cash to protect families from the risk of the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic.

Influx of refugees and internally displaced people

In recent years, the situation for internally displaced people has gradually deteriorated due to the numbers of people arriving and seeking protection in camps and temporary settlements across the Middle East.

Our work

All our construction and rehabilitation projects are undertaken in partnership with international organizations like UNHCR and aim to be socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. We achieve this by cooperating with local and national government authorities, UN agencies, NGOs and other partners. We also consult with refugees and host communities during the planning and design phases of our projects. Finally, we promote environmentally sustainable construction materials and ensure that the design and construction methods minimize maintenance requirements over the life cycle of the facility.

Safeguarding public health

Access to clean water and proper sanitation facilities are among the most urgent needs for displaced people. We have specialized in WASH services, in order to safeguard public health for displaced and local communities.

Our work

We have implemented a number of WASH projects in the Middle East in partnership with UNHCR to provide adequate infrastructure for water and sanitation and to educate people in good hygiene practices. We help displaced families achieve dignified living conditions and protect their right to safe water and sanitation.

Basic right to formal education

The recent instability and great numbers of displaced people from Syria and other parts of the Middle East has led to a high number of children losing their basic right to formal education. This is due to a number of challenges such as limitations in the allocation of funds, language barriers and demotivation.

Our work

We have launched a project to promote formal education among refugee children, with a focus on improving the quality of education and reducing the number of student dropouts from school, which is interrelated to child labor and child marriage. Our activities improve the quality of education and ensure a safe learning environment, benefiting a wide range of students from primary schools to secondary schools.

Minimizing protection risks

Internally displaced people and refugee families often arrive to camps with very few belongings and even less information about the services and assistance available to them. Community outreach is of great importance in order for new arrivals to better adapt to their new environment. Furthermore, newly arrived individuals have an increased risks of being subjected to sexual- and gender-based violence.

Our work

Our Outreach project seeks to engage internally displaced people, refugees and host communities in protection operations. Through community-based protection, our initiatives are implemented based on protection case identification, community resource mapping, mass information dissemination, facilitation of community empowerment initiatives, and local capacities already in place. In addition to community-based protection, we emphasize the prevention of gender-based violence among women and girls in camp and host communities.

Identifying human rights violations

Internally displaced people and refugees are at constant risk of human rights violations. To prevent this from taking place, there needs to be constant protection monitoring in place and systems for reporting violations. Protection monitoring generally takes place over an extended period of time and needs to be coordinated and undertaken by agencies with a specific mandate and expertise to do so.

Our work

In response to urgent challenges concerning protection, SWEDO, in partnership with the United Nations, have implemented a number of projects. Our protection monitoring involves collecting, verifying and analyzing information in order to identify human rights violations and protection risks – and establishing a safe environment with other active service providers.

Means of income

Most families that are forced to abandon their homes also lose their means of income and have to depend on assistance from aid organizations to survive. However, most displaced people, returnees and refugees have certain skills, talents and experiences that can help them generate an income if they are supported in this endeavor.

Our Work

We support displaced people in going back to their homes and help returnees depend on themselves to make an income and feed their families. Several different livelihood projects are implemented to provide skills training and support for farmers and other small businesses.

These projects include distribution of seeds and fertilizers, mentoring to better utilize the farms, rehabilitating irrigation canals and spraying fields with necessary chemicals. We also support farmers when they are harvesting their crops, warehousing products and finally selling them at the local market.

Raising voices

There are significant social development challenges in the region such as social cohesion and civic inclusion of youth, women and other vulnerable groups. Local sustainable resilience has become increasingly important in emergency-management and post-disaster situations, but the resilience of local communities is facing challenges due to the lack of communication between decision-makers and community members.

Our work

Social development in the Middle East calls for a holistic, long term approach. Through workshops conducted together with our local partners, we are working to enhance young people’s technology skills about digital safety, research methods, and infographics – so that they can pioneer campaigns and civic initiatives. The aim is to empower young people to speak up about their rights and raise their voices in their local community. This to strengthen their civic inclusion and participation in the decision making processes, including advocating for better human rights implementation.