Türkiye hosts the world’s largest refugee population since 2014. Official numbers suggest that there are 3.6 million Syrians under temporary protection and over 330,000 refugees and asylum seekers under international protection.
The “Increasing Resilience of Refugees and Vulnerable Host Community Members and Fostering Peaceful Co-Existence in Çorum” project aims to increase the resilience of refugees and vulnerable host community members and promote peaceful co-existence through a series of social cohesion, non-formal education, and protection interventions adopting a community-based approach. The project will reach 4,082 individuals and targets Syrians and non-Syrian refugees, primarily from Afghanistan and Iraq, including disadvantaged host community members in Çorum as the primary target groups.
To promote and foster peaceful co-existence through the active participation of communities, LEAP conducts structured social cohesion activities bringing refugee and host community members together in safe spaces and leading group discussions to reinforce positive messaging on the subject. The project plans to implement weekly and monthly events and recreational activities amongst the targeted groups and organise workshops in community centres. LEAP also delivers accelerated social cohesion training to young people, participating in community events as active agents for positive social change.
LEAP provides Turkish language learning courses to Syrians and refugees from other nationalities in Çorum. The classes allow refugees from various nationalities to interact and socialise. In addition to facilitating social interaction and allowing a more cohesive environment, the courses are expected to help refugee participants overcome the language barrier and promote their skills to access the labour market and public and private services efficiently.
LEAP implements awareness-raising and information dissemination sessions to facilitate refugees’ access to protection, rights, and access to services. These activities aim to build refugees’ and vulnerable populations’ knowledge and capacity to identify, demand, and seek access to multiple services available, including referral and assistance for gender-based violence (GBV), GBV complaint mechanisms, and Law no. 6284, etc. LEAP also conducts sessions on Sexual and Reproductive Health tailored for adolescents, women, and men.
Through its outreach activities, LEAP applies rapid assessment to persons of concern, identifies persons with protection concerns, and provides individual protection assistance services, including providing psychological first aid, internal referrals to counselling, or external referrals to other service providers, as needed. Outreach teams also contribute to the “Back to School” campaign by identifying, referring, and following up with school-age children.
Individual and group psychosocial support is provided to participants throughout the project activities, in tandem with legal counselling on women’s and refugee rights for people of concern.
This project is co-funded by the European Union through its Humanitarian Aid Operations Department (ECHO) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by LEAP in Türkiye in partnership with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) between 01.02.2023 and 31.12.2023