QRCS, OCHA Launch Intervention In Northwestern Syria

With funding from the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) launched phase 1 of a project to support life-saving therapeutic and preventive nutrition services in northwestern Syria. Being the second of its kind this year, the project is planned to last until June 2023. The project aims to save lives and reducing mortality and morbidity rates among the most vulnerable groups, by identifying acute malnutrition in children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, providing them with micronutrients and preventive nutritional supplements, referring critical cases to specialised medical centres, promoting health education about infant/child nutrition in emergencies, and raising awareness about essential health-related topics like Covid-19.
Nutrition services were activated through mobile rapid response teams, with a total of 50 health professionals, to expand the scope of coverage and reach out to the most affected populations in underserved remote areas.
The nutrition programmes were adjusted to the Covid-19 context, in order to minimise infection risks, while ensuring the continuity of life-saving nutrition services.
As regards awareness-raising, interactive and engaging informative techniques are used under the project, which helps to better disseminate healthy and proper nutritional behaviours among the target communities long after the end of the intervention, thus ensuring social impact sustainability.
Direct beneficiaries are estimated at 158,000 persons in 27 villages and camps of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Syria, including 60,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women and 80,000 male and female children.

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