Dignity for displaced women and girls in Lebanon

Background during and after the implementation of the project; Big concerns arise about the needs of the refugees coming from Syria and the Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon particularly after the UNRWA decision to reduce the services for the Palestinian particularly in Education. How to meet these needs and for how long.  The global concerns are related to the humanitarian, economic and social aspects of the Syrian crises, and focus on the people inside Syria and the around four million Syrians and Palestine refugees who have been displaced to neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. On top, there is the concern of the continuous mobility of displaced people as a consequence of the unrelenting unstable conditions. The situation of Palestine and Syrian refugees from Syria, which implicates the situation of the already vulnerable Palestine refugees in Lebanon.  This instability is leading to changeable needs, and accordingly the variation of prioritizing these needs should be continuously updated. This is needed in order to ensure that poor and vulnerable individuals having access to their basic services, At the same time, special attention paid to women and adolescent girls  who are most vulnerable and often the first victims of any crisis. It is worthy to note that, UNRWA stopped paying the renting subsidies, and reducing the cash assistance in a range of 27 USD per individual per month,  which is nothing according to the international standards which confirm the minimum coverage ensuring that shelter, hygiene, food, clothes, education and basic needs are totally covered. This lead that the pregnant women and the new born babies have no chance to benefit from the cash assistance.   Therefore, and according to the focus groups conducted with women, the household headed families of the women and girls cant afford to buy their needed items, as they are looking to provide the basic needs of the whole family members to be survived.

Naba’a Achievements;

During the last period, Naba’a responded to the main needs for the most vulnerable and marginalized groups, particularly women and girls as the followings;

-          Monthly reproductive and psychosocial health outreach sessions conducted by the psychosocial and health professionals

-          Implemented a breast cancer campaign by referring around 200 women who are at risk of breast cancer for the diagnostic test in coordination with the accredited primary health care.

-          Implementing a psychosocial individual sessions for the more than 50 women and girls whom are exposed to violence and abuse

-          Implementing Accelerating learning program for the adolescent girls whom are dropped out of school

-          Holding 10 outreach activities and trips for the children including females and their parents to release their stress and giving them opportunity to express their feelings and to go outside the camps.

Case Study for one female child who is in need of psychosocial support;

Mother’s name: Sawsan

Members of family : 4 girls without the mother

The order in the family : the last one (from the mother)

The step mother and three children live with the family

Address: al sifsaf district

Summary about the life the child:

The child was living in  a secure situation with her family in Syria till the father married from another women . she always hearing what her mother say  about the father, in addition she is living in the whole problems occurred between the mother and the father.  Therefore, the girl become very nervous and started to hate her father, knowing that, the father with the his new wife decided to live together with the father’s family, in the same house due to the difficult economic situation, this lead the girl to became impolite and hating more his father, she hates her brothers and created many problems between the mother and the step mother.

The economic situation:

Very bad situation and this is the reason for gathering the two families together

The social situation:

It is very bad , each member in the family blame the other about any problem happened and she always splits to the mother what her brothers do , also it is noticeable that the child has no friend either from neighbors or from relatives side since her mother prevents her to go out alone because  of the security situation

The Relation with the family:

She is very close to her mother and don’t let anyone talk about her negatively although she admit that her mother love her eldest sister more than her.

The relation with the father

After his traveling she missed him very much and now she loves him and consider him as a friend

The relation from the brother :

She loves her brother from her mother while the others from the stepmother she hates them and don’t want to live with them because they are trouble maker,

The problem:

The child has flurry in the relation with the family she don’t know how to deal with her father and how to love and deal with her bother she hates them and make problems regularly with them, and she become aggressive.

Also it is noticeable   that she don’t have a male friends because the remember her by her brothers.

The aim of the case

Reducing her nervousness and aggressive of the child and integrate her in the activities to become more helpful and flexible

Recommendations :

-          Continue the listening sessions with the child

-          Continue  in integrating her in different activities

-          Regular home visits

Background during and after the implementation of the project; The situation  in Lebanon in general  is  un-stable where demonstrations against the government  has started since a month and still up to now , while the security situation in the Palestinian camps is not good  especially after the fight in Ein El Helwe , but its improving by the time

-          As a result of the continuous and systematic discrimination than jeopardizes Palestinian and Syrian refugees capacity to enjoy an adequate standard of living, the majority of Palestinian refugees and Syrian refugees living in Lebanon are almost entirely dependent on UNRWA and UNHCR respectively for basic assistance.  This situation is leaving them at continuous risk of being excluded even from access to basic assistance.   Refugees who are located in the Palestinian refugee camps has had a negative impact on the Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon and generate more tension and perhaps conflicts between the three types of refugees, because  they all are suffering from poverty, unemployment, rejection from the wider community and they are both in crucial need for a helping hand.

-          Limited job opportunities; Palestinian men are still competing with other refugees from Syria for work opportunities, which have declined due to post-war economic conditions in Lebanon. The restrictions imposed on them by the Lebanese state further worsen their financial conditions by prohibiting them from practicing professional jobs, and from enjoying ownership and inheritance rights because of their refugee status.

-          Social exclusion physically extends to camps, the space inhabited by about two thirds of Palestine refugees. However, the area of the camps had increased with population and many have become cramped slums, offering little privacy to residents and exposing them to health hazards and more even; social problems had increased recently due to cut of UNRWA services towards the PRS and due to the above mentioned reasons related to job opportunities, all these reasons affected the children’s lives; recently noticed an increase in conflicts among the displaced and host communities. 

-          Women are disproportionately affected by the issues that face the Palestinian refugee and marginalized communities in Lebanon; they have lower self-reported physical health and restricted opportunities to work.  Conservative attitudes again compound this isolation, by creating limited chances to socialize or ‘let off steam’, with social interaction between women being largely restricted to each other’s’ homes. The prevalence of self-reported psychological ill-health is therefore high – around 22% according to a recent report by AUB (Chabaan et al, 2010) – though general stress and malaise is likely felt by many more. Furthermore, the labels placed upon women with expressed psychological difficulties (e.g. ‘crazy’, ‘mad’, ‘stress’) depower women. These labels need to be countered, and awareness of psychological issues needs to be raised in the community

Naba’a Achievements;

During the last three months, the most highlighted achievements are as the followings;

-          Implementing Remedial Education for the Palestinian refugees and displaced Syrians those whom are at risk of dropping out of schools and whom are already dropped out of school. Knowing that, 55 out of 300 children returned back to school, where the remaining is still either in preparation of returning back or to be enrolled in a vocational training centers.

-          Establishing girls committee in Naher El Bared Camp, this committee is responsible of tackling the issues related to the violations of women rights and gender discriminations and raised their concerns and problems to the active members and duty bearers.

-          Raising awareness 300 women and 300 adolescent girls about the importance of education, and how much this will protect them from abuse.

-          Providing 800 school children (50% are females) with winter Jackets, children are displaced from Syrian and Palestinian refugees.

-          Conducting two months campaign about breast cancer where more than 2000 women participated in the campaign, knowing that, during the campaign, the women whom are at risk of breast cancer are referred for Mammography to be checked.

-          Aiming to release the stress for the children and their families different outreach and trips were implemented for around 600 children and their parents.  

Case Study for one of the girls who is in need of assistance;

Name; M – T

Marital Status; Married

Family members; 7 children (5 girls – 2 boys)

Nationality; Palestinian Refugee from Syria

Economical Situation;

 The Economical situation is very bad, she was washing dishes in the restaurant, as her husband is not working, in addition she moved to work as a cleaner in one of the shops in the market, where her salary is not satisfied so she left the work, and now they are depending on the NGOs assistance and support.  They live in a very tragic situation where they cannot meet the needs of children or medicines of her husband and son, who suffers from asthma medication he needs to be secured.

Health Status: The woman suffers from anemia and asthma where increased to cough and that the nature of the place in which it is located is full of moisture, as they can live in a comfortable place because of a bad economic situation.

Social situation;

They are living in a very bad situation, where there is no privacy, everyone in the neighborhood knows about the problems that they are suffering from, in addition, due to that their room where they are living doesn’t allow their children to play in a comfortable way this forced the children to play outside the room and in the street and make a lot of problems with their neighbors.

Women's relationship with her husband:

There is no attraction towards him where he became hits and screaming so much they do not like anything because of the dire situation that we have reached. A lot of problems occurred between each other along the day, the husband spent most of his time sleeping, doesn’t care about his children and became uninterested in anything but himself.

Relationship with her children: She started not to take care of her children in a suitable way, everything in her life make her angry and stress, which lead her to beat and hit them, she has a lot of responsibilities and no one beside her. This is badly effected her relation with her children, as the most important issue she is caring of is providing their basic needs and priorities.

The main problem that she is suffering from;

She feels, she lives in a conflict situation, she lost everything she loved suddenly, she always wishing to die and to get rid from this life, but always thinking of her babies and young children.  

The factors that led to worsened the situation:

-          The bad economic situation, which prevents her and her family from buying medicine or meet needs.

-          Marital status that makes them feel depressed all the time and you get problems with her husband and changing in their lives, leading to increasing problems and resort to isolation and escape from reality.

The goal of the case study:

-          Improve women's psychological and make her think more positively

-          Enhance her self-confidence

Steps of intervention:

-          Involving her systematically in parents deal activity

-          Implementation of individual sessions

-          Involving her in awareness sessions

 Recommendations:

-          Continue her involvement of the parent meetings

-          Hold individual sessions for children

-          Continue home visits