It has been a super busy month since getting back from Jordan, and I’m in the final crunch time of finishing my MA dissertation. Lots of time spent at the library!
I’m looking at the rise of Syrian NGOs in local communities as humanitarian service providers, especially given the lack of access that international NGOs have in different areas of Syria – in particular opposition held areas or areas under regime siege. I was going to look at a number of different organizations, and maybe do a cross-comparison of them, but I’ve decided to focus on one – Ghiras al-Nahda, which operates in Damascus and the countryside, including the Eastern Ghouta.
In a tragic sense of necessity is the mother of all invention/innovation, Ghiras al-Nahda is working on a campaign for the people of besieged Eastern Ghouta to grow their own mushrooms, which is a viable and nutritious food source in an area where food is scarce and has to be smuggled in or grown.
They have a fundraiser on the platform CanDo, which is a really interesting humanitarian fundraising initiative, that sort of circumvents traditional funding and donor streams.
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