Doha: Work on the ‘Honourable Life’ project, which involves building 2,200 houses using clay blocks from the natural environment in Syria, launched by Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) to provide adequate housing for the displaced people inside Syria is progressing well. The QRCS is utilising its legal capacity as an internationally recognized humanitarian organisation whose vehicles, facilities, and staff are protected under international laws and conventions.
The 1st phase involves 100 houses for 600 people in Afes, Idlib. Consisting of two rooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom, each house costs QR6,100, apart from the cost of land preparation and infrastructure.
The mechanisms of execution includes securing approvals, allocating a three-hectare land plot, creating a prototype, contracting a Turkish construction contractor and a French consultancy firm, purchasing equipment and material, preparing the site, levelling roads, pouring cement, installing a ground water tank, extending two main and one secondary water network, laying a waste water network, and building 36sqm housing units with all fittings.
QRCS staff faced some challenged including the high temperatures, disruption of work due to fuel overpricing, insecurity in neighbouring districts, water scarcity.
To deal with these issues, QRCS staff secured sheds and fuel from Turkey, took measures to ensure the safety of staff and equipment, and dug a water well to provide water. A plan is developed to remove garbage daily from the housing complex in coordination with the municipality.
The project has a positive impact on the local economy by creating job opportunities for construction and transportation workers, as well as procuring building supplies from the local market.
The project will improve the lives of the beneficiaries by ensuring that every family will have a separate house with all facilities. Unlike emergency shelter tents, these houses are fit to protect the families against heat and cold weather.
Another project is under study to construct 500 clay houses in northwestern Aleppo countryside.
This will be followed by other side projects, and it is open for consideration and adoption by other local and international charitable organizations.
Among the major medium- and long-term outcomes of the project are accommodating the Syrian IDPs in the same environment as their home neighbourhoods, slowing down the influx of Syrian refugees into the neighboring countries, and shifting from emergency shelter intervention to sustainable development by lower dependence on refugee camps.
The Peninsula
