NRC

Solidarity should not stop at our borders

coronavirus

We are working around the clock to protect displaced people from the devastating consequences of Covid-19.

Support our efforts to protect those who are most vulnerable!

OUR RESPONSE:

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) promotion

Information, counselling and legal assistance (ICLA)

The Norwegian Refugee Council is an independent humanitarian organisation helping people forced to flee. We work in crises across more than 30 countries, where we help save lives and rebuild futures.

Latest news

Africa | 01. Jul 2020

Vulnerable people across East Africa forcibly evicted during pandemic

Over 70,000 people, many of whom are internally displaced, were forcibly evicted from their homes in urban areas across East Africa even during the most prevalent months of the Covid-19 pandemic - a new report reveals.

Ukraine | 25. Jun 2020

Covid-19 and conflict causing chaos for people in eastern Ukraine

Thousands of people in conflict-affected eastern Ukraine are going hungry and lack access to basic services due to Covid-19 price hikes and movement restrictions. Ongoing shelling has also disrupted vital water supplies - meaning many vulnerable and elderly are without access to running water during the pandemic.

Global | 18. Jun 2020

"80 million people displaced is a damning verdict on current global leadership"

Reactive statement by Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council on newly released global displacement figures.

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Longreads

Perspective

Yemen

How Afrah received an identity

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) have been working around the clock to ensure that refugees and displaced children and youth can exercise their right to quality, relevant education.
Mohammad, 13, is one of these children. He is originally from Hama in Syria but fled to Lebanon together with his family six years ago. Now he lives with his parents, three sisters and three brothers in a small apartment outside Tripoli, North Lebanon.
“Although it has been six years since we arrived here, I still wish we can go back every single day. We could play football as much as we wanted in front of our home and we had a huge yard where no one bothered us,” says Mohammad. “In Lebanon we can never finish a football game, the neighbours always get annoyed and ask us to go back home. Now the situation is worse, we can’t do anything.”
Refugee children are bearing the blunt
When the activities stopped due to the Covid-19 outbreak Mohammad and his brothers were very upset. Going to the NRC learning centre, meeting their friends, and learning was part of their daily routines. “It’s not easy to stay at home, I feel down but there is nothing we can do,” says Mohammad with hesitation.
The Corona crisis has led to closed schools and disrupted the education to more than 1.5 billion learners. Refugees and displaced children and youth are bearing the blunt. Children and young people in displacement have often missed out on years of education already, due to war and conflict, and without any help, school closures due to Covid-19 will make them fall behind even further.
“To meet the needs of Mohammad and 1,200 other children enrolled at NRC learning centres in Lebanon we are now implementing remote learning modalities, including via communication platforms such as WhatsApp, combined with follow-up phone calls to provide guidance and support and to safely refer people to other specialised organisations,” says Rayan El Baf, one of NRC’s child protection technical officers in North Lebanon.
Due to the lockdown and fear of spreading the virus our colleagues are not able to visits the children and their parents. It is Mohammad’s mother, Fatima, that has sent us the photos, and it is our colleagues in Lebanon that have interviewed Mohammed and his mother.
“The remote learning has benefited my children a lot. Instead of leaving them behind during this period, NRC’s remote learning methods show us that NRC continues to care about the education of our children and appreciate their efforts to learn. It helps them connect with their inner selves, it gives them courage and strength to know their own worth,” says Fatima, Mohammad’s mother.
Nationwide lockdown

On the 15th of March, Lebanon declared a state of general mobilization in an attempt to control the spread of the coronavirus. With the nationwide lockdown, the basic survival and protection of the most vulnerable communities in Lebanon has become a critical issue. However, despite the challenges and to minimize the risk of exposure to beneficiaries and its frontline staff, NRC Lebanon continues its essential service delivery by only implementing critical lifesaving activities on-site and has tailored other programme interventions through different modalities to specifically support the national Covid-19 response.

Stay and deliver
“Although our learning centres were closed due to the Covid-19 situation, we never stopped delivering educational messages to the children,” says Rayan El Baf. “We regularly contacted them and their parents over the phone to check on their wellbeing, raise awareness on the situation and share learning materials,” she says.
Since the coronavirus lockdown, Mohammad spends most of his time at home. He either focuses on the NRC learning materials, revises the lessons, or plays with his siblings. He also sometimes helps his father at work, who sells coffee for a living.

Caring teachers

“My teacher Rouwayda always supports us to solve the exercise when we need help. She is caring and fair. Our teachers make us feel at ease and insist that we understand the lessons before leaving the classroom,” says Mohammad.

Mohammad’s mother is grateful for the support NRC gives her children. “They are always so happy when talking to the staff and are able to express themselves easily.”

“The remote teaching allows my children to revise and remember the information they received in the classes and bring some variety to the daily routine during the coronavirus lockdown. This is not only helping them to learn but also to feel more positive about the situation,” Fatima says. “The remote learning and support given over the regular calls also helps me to communicate better with my children”, she concludes.

New ways and solutions

“Though adopting remote learning modalities, we have been able to develop a positive bond between us and the parents are becoming more involved in their children’s education. Luckily, we have not faced any difficult issues with the remote learning, and we are always trying to find new ways and solutions to deal with any challenges that might arise. However, the hardest challenge is perhaps that we cannot answer the children when they ask us when they can come back to our centres to see us and their friends,” Rayan concludes.

“The learning centre was a place where I felt safe. I miss both my friends and the teachers. But most of all I would like to return to Syria,” Mohammad says.
Photo: Private

Perspective

CORONAVIRUS

Remote learning in Lebanon

Workers are restructuring the school building under NRC supervision- Harasta, Eastern Ghouta

Photo: Tareq Mnadili/NRC

Perspective

Syria

The bombed buildings that haunt Syria’s children

Opinions

Inside NRC camp management center in the outskirts of Kabul city, our staff provides masks to visitors from the camp and also guide them on prevention measures and train them how can they reduce any potential risk of infection to them and their family.

NRC Camp Management is working in 20 settlements consist of 4000 households and 35000 individuals, out of 52 informal settlements in Kabul. Photo: Enayatullah Azad / NRC

Global | 22. May 2020

The crippling cost of Covid-19 on refugees

Date: 22 January 2020
Location: Barsalogho - Center North Burkina Faso
Photo: Tom Peyre-Costa/NRC

Burkina Faso|Mali|Niger | 07. Apr 2020

Military intervention alone will fail to solve the Sahel crisis

In an effort to raise awareness of the necessary hygiene steps to contain the spread of Covid-19, the Camp Management team with support from the WASH team in Herat and Badghis are conducting an awareness raising campaign across displacement sites in Afghanistan.

Global | 26. Mar 2020

Coronavirus will silently hit the world's displaced hardest

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NRC_Norway · 19h

Insecurity involving non-state armed groups & government forces in #Cameroon’s North West & South West regions has… https://t.co/PkZYOJjWfu

10 13

NRC_Norway · 23h

“There's only one centre for #Covid_19 cases in our city,” says our staff member Mohamed. His team are providing fr… https://t.co/np4mr75Rdi

3 20

NRC_Norway · 2d

The @ECHO_MiddleEast-funded research on access to #education for Syrian #refugee children in #Lebanon shows that bo… https://t.co/oYUNpsZ2KC

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NORCAP: Global provider of expertise

About NORCAP

NORCAP is a global provider of expertise to the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding sectors. We build partnerships with international organisations and national actors to protect lives, rights and livelihoods.

Partners and donors

NORCAP works with partners on national, regional and international levels in order to contribute effectively to humanitarian operations. We provide expertise in various fields to support to a wide range of organisations and countries through the deployment of expert personnel.