Completion of preparatory visits to a number of villages within the project “Only one Step away”
GAV – HASAKA
GAV4RD has resumed the second phase of preparatory visits to a number of villages in Al-Hasaka countryside as part of the Social Development Program, which aims to reduce tension in the community and reject the hate speech among the components of Al-Jazeera area. The project was lunched on February 1st 2018 and scheduled to be continued until the end of April.
During the first month, the programs’ team started the second phase of the preparatory visits by visiting on February 20th, the villages of Al Hasaka city, including Tel Baidar, Shama and Simtek.
However, the organization’s team held several meetings and interviews with the leaders and heads of the communes in these villages to fill the form adopted by the organization in order to study the situation of the villages from various aspects, as well as to explain the details of the project and its agendas and activities and take the approvals of those concerned in those villages to start implementing the planned activities during April 2018.
The leaders and heads of the communes and villages expressed their interest in the idea of the project and interacted with the program team in the organization. They also suggested to the administrative team in the organization, to include the villages in the project activities.
Meanwhile, the program team will continue the visits to other villages in the rural areas of Al- Derbassiya, as part of the initial phase of the project, which will end on March 1st 2018.
The GAV4RD has adopted this orientation to implement the community integration projects in order to consolidate the principles of civil peace and coexistence between the components, given their importance, especially in the current period due to the ongoing conflicts in Syria, which led to increase the social rift, dissonance, ethnic and sectarian conflicts between the components and in Syria as a whole. The Organization believes in the vitality of the implementation of this type of projects in the context of community integration to achieve peace and coexistence between the components and to spread a culture of acceptance of the other.
The project aims to promote, in cooperation with local effective organization working on the ground, the concepts of civil peace in the local community and to lay the foundations for national reconciliation and create an atmosphere of interaction among the people to get out of the suffering they have experienced and as a small step towards reconciliation. It also aims in particular, to enhance the youth role in the process of rehabilitation inside local communities and support them as an active force who constitute the basic infrastructure in the next phase in Syria.
GAV4RD has formed a team of volunteers from undergraduate and graduate students in the purpose of relying on the academic and cultural youth forces and their effective role in promoting the social development and the effective impact of achieving the objectives of the project. The team contains (12 students/male and female) from various Syrian components of Al-Jazeera region, who form together and reflect an environment and a miniature embodiment of the reality of Al-Jazeera region and its rich culture and its cultural diversity. In order to enable the team to communicate, discuss and solve problems, and establish dialogues in a professional manner, the organization will train those volunteers on three training axes: (communication skills, administrative skills and technical and cultural training).
The project plan targets (15 villages) in Al-Hasaka’s rural area, Al-Derbassiya and Torba Sabih, and from the various components of the region (Arabs, Kurds and Assyrians). The activities will be carried out in the villages through the volunteering team which will work on a range of purposeful activities, such as (talk sessions, homes’ visits, musical activities related to the folklore of various components, recreational activities, distribution of gifts for children and a theatrical show that embodies the idea of peaceful coexistence between populations).
