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Syria

QRCS Provides Alternative Housing for Syrian IDPs

The work is in progress on the 'Honorable Life' project, launched by Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) to provide adequate housing for the displaced inside Syria, utilizing its legal capacity as an internationally recognized humanitarian organization whose vehicles, facilities, and staff are protected under international laws and conventions.

The project involves building 2,200 houses using clay blocks from the natural environment in Syria. The 1st phase involves 100 houses for 600 people in Afes, Idlib. Consisting of two rooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom, each house costs QR 6,100, apart from the cost of land preparation and infrastructure.

The mechanisms of execution are as follows: securing approvals, allocating a three-hectare land plot, creating a prototype, contracting a Turkish construction contractor and a French consultancy firm, purchasing equipment and material, preparing the site, leveling roads, pouring cement, installing a ground water tank, extending two main and one secondary water network, laying a waste water network, and building 36 sq-m housing units with all fittings.

During execution, QRCS's staff faced some issues including the high temperatures, the halt of work due to fuel overpricing, insecurity in neighboring districts, and scare water.

To deal with these challenges, QRCS's staff secured sheds and fuel from Turkey, took measures to ensure the safety of staff and equipment, and dug a water well to provide water. A plan is developed to remove garbage daily from the housing complex in coordination with the municipality.

The project has a positive impact on the local economy by creating job opportunities for construction and transportation workers, as well as procuring the building supplies from the local market.

Socially, the project will improve the lives of the beneficiaries by ensuring that every family will have a separate house with all facilities. Unlike emergency shelter tents, these houses are fit to protect the families against heat in the summer and cold weather in the winter.

Another project is under study to construct 500 clay houses in northwestern Aleppo countryside, building upon the lessons learnt from the current project, with new design and execution techniques to make use of the site-specific advantages, as well as better equipment.

This unprecedented project will be followed by other side projects, and it is open for consideration and adoption by other local and international charitable organizations.

Among the major medium- and long-term outcomes of the project are accommodating the Syrian IDPs in the same environment as their home neighborhoods, slowing down the influx of Syrian refugees into the neighboring countries, and shifting from emergency shelter intervention to sustainable development by lower dependence on refugee camps.​