14-06-2023 | di COOPI

Syria. Cleaning Aleppo from rubble by providing employment opportunities

The project "Restoring Community Health and Safety Conditions in the Most Earthquake-Affected Neighborhoods of Aleppo through the Application of Intensive Employment Approaches" implemented by COOPI-Cooperazione Internazionale in Syria, started at the end of April with financial support from the International Labor Organization (ILO), following the tragic event of Feb. 6, 2023, which struck Turkey and the north of the country.

The purpose of the project is to clean up the most affected neighborhoods of Aleppo (specifically, al-Saliheen and al-Fardos) from rubble, on one hand creating immediate short-term employment opportunities for 100 people, and on the other, reducing exposure to disease, hazardous materials, and risk of further disasters due to the impact of the recent earthquake on the local community.

Workers are now engaged in community infrastructure work, including removing debris, repairing water and sewer points, and restoring walkways. The work follows a series of training courses for engineers on occupational safety and labor-intensive methods in construction work. Each worker has been provided with first aid training and personal protective equipment essential to be able to do the work.

Mahmoud Ibrahim Bakir says:

I also participated in the emergency response through my work in a social affairs association. As for my work in this project, it allowed me to gain new experience as a civil engineer, as I supervised some workers to remove rubble and open closed roads that my family and I could use. I believe that at the end of this project, I will gain good experience that will allow me to work on other projects.

Ltifa Yaser Al Mohamad explains:

I immediately participated in the emergency response from the first day of the earthquake. I saw many people injured and others without shelter or food, although my family and I were in need as well. We always tried to reach out to others to mitigate the disaster. This helped me gain experience and relationships with my co-workers, since I live in the same area, and it was also reflected in my family, who encouraged me to do this work to do something useful for the residents. In addition, this job has reflected my personality as an engineer, as I have become able to deal with different categories of workers of different ages.

The intervention will give 100 skilled or low-skilled workers, security officers, and group leaders immediate and short-term decent employment through the ILO's employment-intensive approach. By using local labor and resources, it can increase employment and income and support local communities by enhancing their institutional and operational capacities, as well as increase resilience against future disasters and pave the way for the promotion of long-term decent work.

Tomoki Watanabe, ILO coordinator in Syria, said 

The commencement of community work marks an important milestone in ILO support for earthquake recovery in Syria. We will increase our livelihood intervention to create new and better jobs for vulnerable people in the affected areas.

In fact, an estimated 170,000 workers have lost their jobs and more than 725,000 individuals have been affected due to the earthquakes in Syria.

COOPI has been active in Syria since mid-2016, with projects in the areas of Food Security and Protection in rural Damascus, Dara'a, Hama, Raqqa and Aleppo, dedicated to the most vulnerable, especially women heads of households, children and people with various disabilities. With the 2023 earthquake, it extended its support interventions from Aleppo to Lattakia.