If you are searching for an appeal document, please visit our dedicated Appeals page. If you are searching for an evaluation of, or research related to, our work, please visit our dedicated Evaluations and research page.
This Facilitator Manual presents the information needed to run the 2.5 day Seven Moves: Protection, Gender and Inclusion in Emergencies training course.
This manual contains the background to the training, sample agenda, detailed session outlines, tools and external resources and suggested variations that facilitators can use to contextualise or adapt the training based on the participants.
The participant manual for the course can be found here.
Click here to learn more about the IFRC's work in protection, gender and inclusion.
The stories of three families and howthey’ve created new lives after fleeing Ukraine for Russia with support from an EU-funded programme.
Tatiana is a mother of three who was forced to leave her hometown of Mariupol in Ukraine due to hostilities in 2015. “When the conflict began, we no longer had the strength to endure these horrors, we were afraid for the safety of our family and we decided to leave,” she says.
Arriving in Yelets, Russia, Tatiana turned to the Russian Red Cross for support: all family members were given several vouchers to buy groceries and other necessities, as well as free healthcare policies. “We have passed the circle of hell. We had nothing to sleep on: there were no pillows and bed linen, thanks to the Red Cross we acquired these necessary things. And thanks to healthcare policies, we were able to get free medical care, which we could not afford."
Fellow Ukrainian Elena fled Horlivka, Donetsk region, in 2014. Since then, the family faced many difficulties on their way: they couldn’t find legal work due to lack of citizenship and couldn’t afford decent housing. “There was a time when we had to live with 10 people in one room. Work was also difficult to find due to a lack of citizenship. And because of the pandemic, there are even fewer opportunities to work,” shares Elena.
The Red Cross supported Elena’s family by issuing food vouchers and health insurance, as well as providing psychosocial support. “The help was very significant. It allowed us to save money and buy furniture, take care of the paperwork – otherwise we would not be able to afford it,” she shares.
Christina together with her husband and a small son had to leave her hometown of Luhansk in 2014 and settled in Volgograd. In an attempt to overcome stress and find the strength to move on, Christina contacted the Russian Red Cross for psychological support. “Red Cross helped me a lot. I had a chance to speak about my worries and issues. And my son, a child with special needs, receives psychosocial support as well: he can always come here, draw, and talk to the Red Cross staff.”
Christina's family also received vouchers to buy food, legal assistance and free health insurance for Nikita through the programme. “When I come here, I feel like it’s home. People who work for the Red Cross are very kind and helpful. I am very glad that they are here for us and help so many people!”
More about the EU-funded programme assisting displaced people from Eastern Ukraine
Since 2014, over 1.1 million people from Ukraine have moved to Russia. The regions of Belgorod, Lipetsk, Voronezh and Volgograd are among those hosting the largest numbers of displaced people.
Since May 2017, the IFRC and the Russian Red Cross Society have provided humanitarian assistance to more than 10,000 displaced people from Ukraine. The project focuses on helping displaced people who have not yet received asylum status or whose status is non-regulated in Russia, which limits their access to basic health services and social benefits. Funding has been provided by the EU’s Directorate-General of European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) totalling 300,000 Euro between October 2020 and December 2021.
Disclaimer: This document covers humanitarian aid activities implemented with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of the European Union, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
COVID-19 is exacerbating the immense mental toll on the millions of people around the world already living through disasters, conflicts and emergencies, who are routinely exposed to distressing experiences such as losing loved ones, homes and livelihoods.
This report offers experiences and recommendations from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement on how to best support people's mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seven Moves is the IFRC's2.5 day-long training course on Protection, Gender and Inclusion in Emergencies. Its objective is to enable participants to understand the issues of protection, gender and inclusion, and their implications for their respective areas of work.
The training course will introduce you to the Minimum Standards for Protection, Gender and Inclusion in Emergencies, and its approach to gender, age, disability and diversity with a strong focus on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) prevention, mitigation and response and child protection, through a framework of dignity, access, participation and safety (DAPS).
The facilitator manual for this course can be found here.
Click here to learn more about the IFRC's work in protection, gender and inclusion.
Between August 2017 and August 2019, more than 700,000 people were forced to cross the border from Rakhine State, Myanmar to Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh to seek safe shelter and flee violence.
In August 2019, the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society conducted a large-scale community engagement study to get a better understanding of the perceptions of guest and host communities. Survey topics included key concerns and demands, the security and protection situation, perspectives for the future, and the perception of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society.
This report offers an overview of the study and its findings, as well as recommendations for humanitarian actors operating in Cox's Bazar.
The better each household can plan ahead for disasters, reduce its risks, develop response skills and store provisions, the greater its resilience will be.
By following this guidance, households and families can protect themselves, recover quickly, and contribute to the rapid recovery of their community.
Scroll down to find a template and checklist to help you prepare your own family safety plan.
Learn more about reducing disaster risks here.
Geneva/Ankara/Damascus (11 February 2023) - The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is calling on the international community for long-term support and solidarity to the people in Türkiye and Syria hit by two devastating earthquakes on 6 February.
“The level of pain and suffering is immense and the need for support is equally enormous. This humanitarian response is not a sprint. It is a marathon. We call on the international community to support the people of Syria and Türkiye not just in the coming days, but also in the months and years needed for recovery”, said Jagan Chapagain, IFRC Secretary General.
Turkish Red Crescent and Syrian Arab Red Crescent are at the very heart of this response. Both National Societies are rooted in the communities they serve, providing unique access to hardest-hit areas. Often volunteers and staff come from those same communities and may have lost loved ones and homes themselves. They continue to work around the clock to provide life-saving care to survivors.
As the life-saving search and rescue window sadly closes, the most urgent needs are shelter, health and mental health care, food, and water.
The IFRC continues to scale up international support, bringing in urgently needed relief supplies and resources across borders to support localized efforts.
“The aftermath of the earthquake is that of utter devastation. Buildings, schools, homes, and hospitals are destroyed. The most heart-breaking reality is the many thousands still missing and stuck under the rubble. The chances of finding survivors are shrinking. Time is running out fast. Response efforts are extremely challenging. Many roads and other infrastructure have been damaged, limiting access to affected areas. Freezing winter conditions and aftershocks are also hampering those efforts and putting rescuers in considerable danger”, the IFRC Secretary General concluded.
The IFRC has scaled up its two International Emergency Appeals to 200 million Swiss francs to support people in Syria (80 million Swiss francs) and Türkiye (120 million Swiss francs).
Red Cross Red Crescent Action
In Türkiye, the Turkish Red Crescent has deployed more than 4,000 staff and volunteers in affected provinces with stocks of food and basic aid items to support those injured and evacuated. Their teams have distributed 3.5 million hot meals among people outdoors and at emergency shelters and reached 284,000 people with ready-to-eat packages. To meet the increased demand for blood, Turkish Red Crescent has sent its national blood stock to the affected regions and is calling on people across Türkiye to donate blood.
In Syria, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent teams have been responding with 4,000 volunteers and staff in hardest hit areas – including Hama, Aleppo, Lattakia and Tartous –reaching almost 60,000 people with life-saving support. Medical units have been performing first aid, emergency evacuations and transport to hospitals. Volunteers on the ground have distributed more than 42,000 packages of food, water, basic items and hygiene kits to people, and have been providing restoring family links services.
Red Crescent National Societies in both Türkiye and Syria are providing mental health and psychosocial support to those in need to alleviate distress and refer them for long-term mental health care if necessary.
In the Palestinian Refugee camps in Syria, Palestine Red Crescent teams are working together with Syrian Arab Red Crescent to provide life-saving support, including first aid and food distribution. Their response teams are mainly focused on the Palestinian camps in Aleppo and Latakia, providing ambulances, medical clinics, doctors, and volunteers.
For more information or to coordinate an interview, please contact:
In Geneva: Tommaso Della Longa, +41 79 708 4367, [email protected]
In Beirut (covering Syria): Mey Elsayegh, +961 3 229 352, [email protected]
In Gaziantep:(coveringTürkiye) Corrie Butler, +36 70 430 6506, [email protected]
In Ankara: Elif Isik, +90 539 857 51 97, [email protected]
In Washington: Marie Claudet, +1 202 999 8689, [email protected]
Photos and video of this response are available to download and use here.
Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) is an effective, efficient and transparent way of providing humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable.It ensures people have the freedom, dignity and independence to decide on their own recovery. But challenges around acceptance and delivery remain when it comes to providing CVA to migrants.
This report reviews how the IFRC has used CVA to assist migrants, offering diverse examples from many different National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. It also analyses the opportunities, barriers and risks to providing CVA in migratory contexts.
This report was originally published on the Cash Hub website, where you can also find more in-depth case study reports on CVA for migrants in Colombia, Niger and Kenya.
Find out more about our work supporting people on the move and delivering cash and voucher assistance.
By Lotte Ruppert
COVID-19 does not discriminate, but the pandemic has disproportionately impacted certain vulnerable communities. Migrants and refugees face particularly large risks, due to language barriers, limited access to public services and a larger reliance on informal labour. Each has diverse perceptions, fears and opinions that we, as a humanitarian community, must address if we want to see this pandemic end.
For Turkey, a country that hosts the largest refugee population in the world (over 4 million from places like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran), this presents a unique challenge. How do you engage people with diverse languages, cultures and communication preferences, all while adhering to strict movement restrictions to curb the pandemic?
Despite the impressive efforts from governmental and humanitarian actors, our impact assessment from April 2020 showed that almost one-quarter (23 per cent) of refugee households did not feel like they were receiving enough reliable information about COVID-19.
In response, Turkish Red Crescent and IFRC have ramped up their efforts to listen and engage with refugees in Turkey during the COVID-19 outbreak. Here are three lessons we learned about how to engage with communities at a large scale through the EU-funded Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN), the largest cash programme globally.
Lesson 1: Use a wide variety of communication channels
Everyone communicates differently. In ESSN, we rely on a range of different channels to allow people to speak with us in a way that they prefer and trust, including Facebook, regular SMSs and our toll-free Call Centre, where all operators have been trained to respond to COVID-19 related concerns and to provide hygiene advice or updates related to ESSN.
But these remote communication channels are not enough.
Refugees in Turkey have expressed their preference to share more sensitive concerns and complaints during private face-to-face conversations. Our nine Service Centres, spread across Turkey, have remained fully operational in order to provide information and support to people during the COVID-19 outbreak, with robust measures to ensure the safety of both its staff and visitors. This approach has been crucial to building trust.
Lesson 2: Do not ignore rumours
“I have an ESSN card but I saw on Facebook that my monthly cash assistance will soon be ended. What is the reason for that?” asked a refugee recently via our call centre.
This “fear rumour” reflects the anxieties of refugees living in Turkey that ESSN may end.
Another refugee family shared: “We are currently receiving ESSN cash assistance, but we have seen on YouTube that Turkish Red Crescent will now also give us rent assistance due to the impact of COVID-19”.
This is a clear “wish rumour”, reflecting the hope of refugees for more support during these difficult times.
The spread of such misinformation and rumours has always been a challenge for ESSN. But we learned that during the COVID-19 pandemic – a time of increased insecurity and stress – it is even more important for us to monitor the appearance and spread of misinformation.
The best defence is to prevent rumours before they start. We share regular information updates, getting accurate, trusted information into people’s hands before rumours have a chance to emerge. When rumours and misinformation do surface, we quickly counter false stories with verified information and ensure the news stories or posts are removed online. We encourage the people we work for to participate too by sharing verified, trustworthy information within their community.
Lesson 3: Responding to incoming questions, feedback and complaints alone is not enough. Reach out proactively to the most vulnerable households
While actively reaching out to every one of the millions of refugees living in Turkey is practically impossible, Turkish Red Crescent has made thousands of outbound calls, contacting the most vulnerable households. This includes families required not to leave their homes for some weeks due to a mandatory curfew, including anyone over 65 as well as people with disabilities. This proactive approach enabled people to share all their questions and concerns with us, including sensitive issues or requests for additional support.
Depending on the specific needs and concerns raised, Turkish Red Crescent has referred some of these people to other services, such as the national COVID-19 emergency hotline, the social assistance services provided by the Turkish Government, and specialized services from other humanitarian actors, including protection actors.
Conclusion
In Turkey, now more than ever, we must continue to build more meaningful relationships with communities and act on people’s concerns and suggestions. COVID-19 has challenged the way we as a humanitarian sector work, but it has also allowed us to find more innovative solutions to listen to refugees and respond to their needs.
More about the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN)
Home to more than 4 million refugees, Turkey hosts more refugees than any other country in the world. Most of them are Syrians, fleeing a conflict that has been ongoing for nine years. With funding from the European Union, Turkish Red Crescent and IFRC are able to provide monthly cash assistance to the most vulnerable families through the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN). Over 1.7 million refugees benefit from this assistance, enabling them to cover some of their basic needs, including food, rent and utilities, every month.
This article covers humanitarian aid activities implemented with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of the European Union, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
This month's update on the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN)provides an update on the ongoing Power to Be III campaign and how we're using powerful storytelling to raise awareness and understanding of people who have had to flee conflict.
From January to June 2023, IFRC-DREF allocated CHF 30.9 million, supporting 68 emergency operations thataffected over 10.1 million people across all regions.In collaboration with57 National Societies,the IFRC has effectively provided emergency funding and support to National Societies anticipating and responding to small, medium and large-scale emergencies, from silent disasters to cross-border emergencies.
This report highlights the progress that theInternational Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has made in making mental health and psychosocial support a priority. It includes the results of a follow-up survey, conducted in 2021,to the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support survey of 2019.
Read a statement from the IFRC Secretary General and ICRC Director General on the report here.