TURKISH RED CRESCENT MIGRATION SERVICES DIRECTORATE BEST PRACTICES

2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Foreword……………………………...... ……..3 II. Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) – KIZILAYKART.………...... ……4 III. Community Based Migration Programmes……………….…………….. 10 IV. Child Programmes…………………...... 16

2 I. Foreword

More than a century and a half of history, the Turkish Red Crescent (TRC) has been fighting against the global diseases, effects of war, natural disasters, earthquakes, famine, and poverty whilst representing mercy and compassion all over the world. One of the primary objectives of Turkish Red Crescent is to empower individuals, and thus the society to alleviate the human suffering caused by diseases, disasters and poverty. The Turkish Red Crescent is the largest humanitarian organization in Turkey with 541 branches and over 11000 staff countrywide. Turkish Red Crescent is the sole host and operational Movement actor in the country, and works closely with the relevant Turkish government ministries, local authorities, disaster response, and migration management agencies in line with its assigned mandate and duties.

Due to the continuing conflict in Syria, Turkey remains host to some 5 million refugees within its borders, including nationals from Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan – making it the country with the largest refugee population in the world. Given the protracted nature of the crisis, interventions seek to integrate long-term resilience benefits as well as greater community engagement to build social cohesion and harmony. These include strengthening resilience and developing adaptation mechanisms focusing on protection needs to complement efforts in basic humanitarian aid provision, and promoting safety and dignity for refugees and host community members.

The critical objective of the Turkish Red Crescent Migration Programmes is to contribute to the community resilience and culture of peaceful co-existence by empowering vulnerable groups together with the host community and enhancing individuals’ psychological, social and economic well-being. In line with the needs of the community and individuals, with a holistic and complementary approach, the Turkish Red Crescent conducts four main programs: KIZILAYKART Cash-Based Assistance Programmes, Community-Based Migration Programmes, Child Programmes, and Syria Crises Coordination Programmes.

3 Emergency Social Safety Net KIZILAYKART Worlds Biggest Cash Based Assitance Programmes

4 1. Adapting to the New Normal – Remote Focus Group Discussions During Covid-19

Context: Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) is one of the most important instruments used by Kızılaykart Programmes during monitoring and evaluation of the programs under the Platform, primarily the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) Programme implemented in partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross – Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) funded by EU Humanitarian Aids(ECHO). ESSN is providing monthly cash assistance to refugees to meet their basic needs and decrease the use of negative coping strategies by enabling them to gain financial independence.

Practices: Within the scope of Kızılaykart Programmes, Focus Group Discussions (FGD)s are being conducted routinely hosted by the households themselves or the Turkish Red Crescent Community Centers where available. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and its related health risks, face to face FGDs could not be carried out as usual. Therefore, to enable a quick response to the pandemic situation, the current modality for FGDs is adapted to minimize the impact of COVID-19 in field activities and to ensure the uninterrupted continuity of monitoring activities. Turkish Red Crescent has taken an innovative action initiating remote online FGDs through utilizing the technological opportunities. Consequently, rFGDs have proved to be a great monitoring tool as they enable the inclusion of participants with a wide geographical coverage and help reach people who would generally have difficulties in attending face-to- face FGD sessions.

Impact: The Remote FGD’s have been proved to be; Innovative: With the technology, an innovative data collection modality gives opportunity to ensure data quality by recording interviews with the consent of the participants. It also increases the quality of analysis and reporting.

More Inclusive: rFGDs are designed to capture the general overview of participants without any operational and geographical obstacles so that a wide range of people, including the most vulnerable, are simultaneously involved during remote sessions from different regions.

5 Ensuring Sustainability: rFGDs enable to ensure communication with the target group and sustainability of monitoring activities.

Safer: Field staff have prioritized precautionary measures throughout the entire process, to ensure the safety of their own and the target group. rFGDs enable individual participation for group discussions without any need of any physical gatherings eliminating the concerns related to spread of Covid-19.

More Focused: Participants are effectively attending to rFGDs in a more concentrated way with the personal devices given to them. In contrast to face-to-face discussions, the remote focus group discussions allow for more planned and better-organized sessions. They are ensuring the attendance of a set number of people, whereas in physical FGDs, managing the participants might prove a bit more challenging due to external factors.

More Comfortable: Participants can express their opinions and elaborate on their experience more easily without feeling any pressure since they do not know other participants before. They also do not have to host people in their homes or move to another place for FGDs.

Real Time Follow Up: rFGDs strengthens the collaboration between field team and the head office with the real time follow up opportunity. The head office is involved in the process from the very beginning and gives/receives quick feedback about the implementation. The M&E Analysis Team also reviews the Technical and analytical aspects of rFGDs. IFRC, as a Programme partner, is taking part in the rFGDs as an observer.

Capacity Strengthening: As the owner of the activity, field staff from different locations have enough chance to work closely with each other. It strengthens a great sense of team spirit by working together and enhances their capacity by sharing experiences and lessons learned.

6 Lessons Learned and Ways Forward: Conducting remote focus group discussions has enabled the continuation of monitoring activities during the COVID19 pandemic. While ensuring social distancing rules and safety measures, running rFGDs with all participants via a video call and the facilitation of a moderator from the office provides qualitative data for ongoing studies.

All field staff can take an active role in moderating FGDs. On the other hand, there is a core list of more qualified staff who are considered as moderators. The staff on the list, which is around 8 to 10, are mainly native speakers or more fluent in Arabic. Apart from this, all field staff has also been assigned as a moderator when applicable in FGDs during July 2020. The aim is to catch up on any other additional potential capacity. Having better skills in managing group dynamics and creating a better discussion environment, this staff among the core list are considered to get training on FGD, which will be held internally by Turkish Red Crescent in-house experts to increase the current standards to higher quality.

Conducting smooth and effective rFGDs can only be enabled in situations where infrastructure is adequate. Moreover, limiting the number of people joining the rFGD sessions to 4-6 allows more opportunity for all participants to express their opinions and eases facilitation of discussions remotely for moderators. Field teams are present at the door of each participant to provide support such as arranging simultaneous participation by checking cameras and mics, connecting and familiarizing/instructing the online platform without giving any responsibility to the participant, fix any technological challenges by using back-up devices when necessary. They also take and refer any issue falling under outreach or protection cases and note any other additional points that may come from the participants. This presence of field staff ensures strong coordination between the field and center office. Overall, all these efforts with a strong network between the team members and participants aim to have rewarding results from remote focus group discussion, which at the end resulted in a great lesson learned to continue monitoring activities in periods of crises or shocks.

7 2. Adapting to Covid-19 Measures – Card Delivery to Targeted Individuals during Lockdowns and Referral to Basic Needs Services

Context: When the lockdowns came into force as a measure to Covid-19 pandemic, individuals experienced problems in accessing basic needs and services. Referral and Outreach teams of Turkish Red Crescent continued their regular activities by also adapting them to find solutions to the affected individuals’ needs. Referral and Outreach Unit of Turkish Red Crescent targeted refugees who are under Temporary Protection, individuals under International Protection and Humanitarian Residence across the country in order to meet their needs especially during the Covid-19 period.

Practice: Referral and Outreach Unit of Turkish Red Crescent regularly carries out advocacy activities to remove the obstacles faced by individuals who cannot access Kızılaykart programmes for various reasons or cannot start benefiting from the assistance and sensitization activities to prevent possible issues that can arise in the future by increasing awareness of the relevant stakeholders about Kızılaykart programmes and updating their knowledge. The teams also refer the cases they identified in the field to the relevant Turkish Red Crescent Units or external services.

When the pandemic hit and lockdowns were introduced, the team carried out analysis by considering the age, disability and the number of individuals in the household through the database owned by R&O unit. With this study, potential households that may face problems in accessing basic needs during the pandemic period were determined and these households were contacted by outbound calls. With these calls, the households were informed about the pandemic and measures, phone numbers that they could reach in case of emergency were shared and their needs were identified and recorded in order to take action or refer them to the relevant service providers. Thousands of households were reached in a short period with the remote issue identification method through massive outbound calls and sensitization & referral activities were carried out during the pandemic period.

8 In addition, activities have been carried out to support individuals over 65 and under the age of 18 who were affected by the curfew within the scope of Covid-19 measures since they could not receive their Kızılaykart card from the bank branches. In line with the needs that emerged during the pandemic period, individuals who were not able to leave their houses were visited and their Kızılaykart cards were delivered. During the card delivery visits, different needs of these individuals were identified and the teams aimed to meet their additional needs by ensuring that they were referred to the relevant authorities or services.

Individuals in need of protection, health, medicine, housing and rent assistance were referred to protection actors and households with basic needs such as food or clothing were referred to the respective Turkish Red Crescent branches as well as local authorities.

Impact: With this process, new methodologies were developed to identify protection risks and concerns remotely through outbound calls. Individuals with specifics needs were identified and they gained access to assistance thanks to card delivery activities.

Effective coordination has been achieved with efficient communication between central and local authorities in the field to ensure vulnerable groups access to the ESSN assistance.

Lessons Learned and Ways Forward: As a result of being active in the field and strong bilateral relations with local authorities, support was provided to those in need, even during the Covid-19 restrictions. Innovative working methods have been developed to enhance identification of protection concerns as well as access barriers to cash assistance during curfew.

Maintaining a strong network with local and central level authorities is the key to ensure the access of the most vulnerable to cash assistance to help them in meeting their basic needs during emergency periods.

9 Community Based Migration Programmes Turkey's Biggest Field Access

10 A. Case Management in the context of Conditional Cash Transfer for Education

Context: The CCTE programme that was implemented for children of the Republic of Turkey in 2003 was extended to refugee children as a result of mass migration from Syria to Turkey. Since 2017, ECHO, BPRM, and the Norwegian Government have funded the extension of the programme for refugee children. The CCTE Programme is implemented through a collaboration between the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services (MoFLSS), Ministry of National Education (MoNE), Turkish Red Crescent (TRC), and UNICEF. Between 2015 and 2018, the official number of refugees and asylum seekers from Syria and elsewhere who were registered in Turkey increased from 1.7 million (including more than 900,000 children) to about 4 million (including 1.7 million children). Data from MoNE suggest that the enrolment rate for Syrian refugee children varies widely, depending on the age group: 30.8 per cent at the preschool level, 88.8 per cent at the primary school level (Grades 1–4), 70.1 per cent at the lower-secondary school level (Grades 5–8) and just 32.6 per cent at the upper-secondary level. Yet close to 400,000 Syrian refugee children—approaching 40 per cent of the school- age population—remain without access to school.

The CCTE extension Programme includes two main components. The cash component provides cash payments to eligible families with the condition of regular school attendance of their children. As long as students attend their education regularly, they benefit from CCTE payments. However, if they are absent for more than four days within a month, their payments are paused. The child protection component comes to the picture in this stage. The CP component operates as follows: CCTE beneficiary children, who are on the rejection list due to absenteeism for more than 4 days, are screened. Child protection teams working in community centers conduct household visits using a standardized Household Assessment Form. Those visited are asked about the reasons for non-attendance and make necessary interventions and referrals in case of need and depending on the risk level.

11 The CP component contributes to prevent, early detect, and respond to child protection risks and violations and to address the needs of vulnerable children and their families by linking them to the appropriate services. Whilst the CCTE extension to refugee children is being implemented nationwide, its CP component is implemented in 15 provinces through 16 community centers.

Practices: The main goal of the child protection component is to identify protection risks if any, in the households of children whose payments are paused due to more than 4 days absentees. After the identification process, if a protection risk is faced, necessary interventions are made. The child protection component aims to mitigate and prevent child protection risks like child labor, child marriage, psychical and emotional violence, peer bullying etc.

The case management involves banding together different sources for people’s needs, ensuring coordination among several services and institutions and activating a service that is passive. A comprehensive case management process involves identification, assessment, developing an intervention plan, implementing intervention and following case. Once needs of beneficiary are met/all steps are completed, the case is closed.

Impact: As of March 2017, 80.682 children were screened until January 2021. 15.092 of them were identified with protection risks and those children were intervened.

To analyse the project’s impact assessment, UNICEF conducts external assessment analyses and case studies. By those studies, the importance of the project and its’ complementary elements were illustrated.

Lessons Learned and Ways Forward: The case management processes of the CCTE project are informative for all implementers of the project and in this line, there are several lessons that are learnt.

First, full involvement of families to the case management process, receives approval for

12 all steps of process and family cooperation are vital for the case management process. To express stages of the process very clearly to family eases the case management process. To make referrals in a proper and productive way, good collaborations with public institutions and non-governmental institutions are extremely important.

Another important challenge is the growing child protection caseload exceeds the current capacity and resources of the child protection team, resulting in a fraction of children who miss the attendance criteria receiving household visits.

Moreover, attendance data clearly shows that adolescents attend school less regularly than younger children, and interviews, focus groups and previous studies highlight the additional obstacles to education that exist for adolescents. Although the larger transfer amount for adolescents and children attending ALP is an important step to address this problem, additional supports and incentives for adolescents to promote regular attendance can be conducted. These additions could include adjusting the age and grade completion criteria to enrol in vocational education to take into account the age at which most Syrian and other refugee children tend to begin working outside the home.

Although there are different challenges in implementation of the project, it could be clearly said that the CCTE project is successful to increase the school attendance rate among Syrian and other refugee children.

An example of case management in CCTE Project:

Muhammad is a 7 year old Syrian boy. He has not attended school in Turkey and needs to be registered. In a CCTE household visit, CP teams visited Muhammad and his family. The Family stated, they want to send Muhammad to school but Muhammad leg was injured due to bombardment in Syria. Moreover, he suffers from stammering because he was psychologically affected by bombardment. Lastly, the family is registered in a different province.

Intervention: Muhammad is included into case management since different interventions are needed for his school enrolment process. An intervention plan is prepared to meet his psychological and physical needs in the light of existing services and his strengths. Firstly, he and his family were referred to DGMM and their registered province was changed. Later on, his registration to school was completed. After registration, he was referred to a psychologist at the community center for his stammering. Lastly, he was referred to a public hospital for his leg to see if any actions can be taken. The CP team regularly followed this case to make sure his needs were met. * Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

B. Advisory Committees

Context: The focal point of our studies is improving the communications, community engagement and accountability in the programs and activities carried out within the scope of the Community Center.

In addition to provide timely and accurate information, it is important to maintain a two-way dialogue with communities, ensuring that people’s needs, complaints and suggestions are received and implemented in a well-timed and regular manner. This makes the programs

13 and activities in the Community Center more effective and increases sustainability. Therefore, the Advisory Committees is formed to share and discuss expectations, feedback and possible problems related to the services of Community Centers or to the subjects affecting the community.

The Advisory Committee consists of 15 community members as migrant and local opinion leaders, and beneficiaries aged 18-65. Members are changed every six months. As of May 2019, the Advisory Committees have been established in all 16 Community Centers.

Practice: Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) assessment was conducted as a preparation phase of the activity including Advisory Committees. The assessment report on Community Engagement and Accountability provides an analysis of the information needs of migrants and local people, their access to communication channels and their orientation in using these communication channels, the structure of the community, social solidarity and social behaviours, and the methods that they prefer to use while expressing their demands and concerns. Additionally, the comprehensive report provide an analysis on staff and volunteers’ capacities working in Community Centers within the scope of the Turkish Red Crescent Community Based Migration Programs.

In most of the areas, there have not been an official community structure for the migrants to take collective decisions. This is commonly because of their scattered living patterns. According to the report in the Community Engagement and Accountability assessment study, migrants communicate with each other on social media. By Advisory Committees, people will be able to interact, build relationships and get closer to each other. Such community structures ensure individual mobility and bring social cohesion.

14 The Terms of Reference of the Advisory Committee has been drafted and shared with Community Centres. Information materials have been shared with opinion leaders, beneficiaries, institutions and societies.

Impact: After Advisory Committees are established in all Community Centers, members were selected among migrants and local people. Regular meetings are held once a month with the selected people. During these meetings, feedbacks, demands, problems, suggestions and complaints of the communities are received. Based on these feedbacks, Community Center services are developed. Additionally, advocacy activities are carried out for those who have complaints or issues with public institutions. In this context, relevant public institution personnel are invited to the meetings and the issues are directly communicated to the interlocutors.

In line with the suggestions and demands of the Advisory Committees, social cohesion activities and socio-economic empowerment activities are shaped according to need. Within the scope of social cohesion, workshops, cohesion through sports and cohesion activities through arts are developed. Additionally, work permits and entrepreneurship supports are developed within the scope of socioeconomic empowerment. Lessons Learned and Ways Forward: Through the Advisory Committees, community needs have been correctly identified and two-way communication has been achieved. Communities have been included in the decision-making mechanism by providing two-way communication. Thus, the activities and projects in the Community Centers are shaped and developed according to the needs.

Interest in advisory committees set up in Community Centers has grown and widespread day-to-day among migrants and local communities. People have voluntarily participated in advisory committees, represented their communities, and shared their needs with us. On the other hand, capacity building training and seminars were organized by Community Centers to raise awareness to the members. By means of advisory committees, individuals have had the opportunity to represent their communities. In this context, effort has been made to create a resilient society and resistant individuals.

15 Child Programmes For Better tomorrows

16 A. Youth Decide and Lead Together

Context: Two Programmes that are mentioned below are implemented in Turkish Red Crescent child friendly spaces (CFS) to enable adolescents from migrant population that are mostly Syrian population under Temporary Protection and the host community to come together and discuss social problems in their province. Adolescents propose, develop and take part as volunteer in projects that contain solutions to the problems they face in their social life. With the implementation of these Programmes, the main aim is to allow adolescents to know that they are not only participants but also important actors both in our Programme and in social life; so that they feel more comfortable in socializing with different groups and they feel safer in the area or society they live in.

The Programmes:

• Youth Advisory Boards (14-18 Age Groups):

Youth Advisory Boards are formed with participation of adolescents and young people in order to learn the needs, demands and suggestions of the society that Turkish Red Crescent serves. This Programme was established in order to hear their opinions on issues and to offer them the opportunity to shape the processes, especially by conducting advocacy activities and volunteerism. Board members come together in a monthly period, discuss current problems in their societies, seek solutions, and prepare work plans for those problems with the supervision of Turkish Red Crescent professionals. It enables the young, specifically Syrians, to raise their voices about their own problems and more importantly to take part in the solution of the problems. This is conducted to allow them to feel themselves both as a part of the society and as actors.

• Volunteerism and Leadership Programme (14-18 Age Groups):

The programme is developed to enable adolescents to discover and develop their leadership characteristics, ensuring that they gain knowledge and skills about volunteering and to

17 find opportunities to develop and implement social projects in safe areas. The Programme consists of two parts/step: Leadership (five activities) and Volunteerism (fifteen activities). Both of these have a separate training period and the Programme requires participants to develop a social project in the end and implement it with the supervision of Turkish Red Crescent professionals. Adolescents who are willing to become volunteers and who are evaluated as successful after the training period, take part in Turkish Red Crescent’s child friendly space activities as volunteers (become role model for their peers and younger children)

Challenges:

• Ensuring the attendance of children to the Programme • Cultural differences of participants

Practice:

Adolescents who attend school fulltime had difficulties to participate in the training period of the volunteerism program or periodic meetings of advisory boards. Training and meeting schedules were postponed to evenings and weekends to enable adolescents to participate more regularly to the programs.

Children have difficulty to deal with differences and working together with children form other nationalities. Implementing socio-cultural events, empathy related activities and providing platforms that enables them to learn from each other make it easier for them to work with different cultures.

18 Impact:

• In 33 Centres more than 4000 children (Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi, and Afghan) have participated to the programs in 16 different cities in Turkey. • Many adolescent volunteers have continued their volunteer works during university education and after graduation. • • The Volunteerism and Leadership Program was implemented as part of the psychosocial support program during the 2013-2014 period (period in which children uprooted and became refugees in Turkey) and developed as a platform for social cohesion after 2015 as Syrian children and their peers from host communities needed safe and structured programs to integrate. • • Children have developed strong bonds with their peers from other cultures and gained ability and experiences of volunteerism.

Lessons Learned and Ways Forward:

New trainings are introduced to programs based on the changes in both societies (Syrian, host communities) and the programs are made available to be implemented in the school environment and online platforms.

19 B. Volunteachers on Duty

Context: Not every child has the chance to get additional educational support and this creates an opportunity gap for the disadvantaged children. “Volunteachers on Duty” is a program aiming to deal with this gap and provide educational support for the disadvantaged children. Turkish Red Crescent volunteers under the supervision of Turkish Red Crescent professionals provide an education support program. University students and graduates (citizens of the Republic of Turkey, Syrians under Temporary Protection or foreign students) attend the volunteer training and evaluation programs that are implemented by Turkish Red Crescent professionals. Participants, who are evaluated as eligible by Turkish Red Crescent, take part in the program as volunteer teachers.

Volunteer teachers provide homework support to Turkish and Syrian children who are enrolled in Turkish public schools and are under the risk of academic failure or dropping out of school. Homework support sessions are planned and carried out in line with the demand of children and families when needs of individual lessons and group sessions are identified.

The fact that both the volunteers and the beneficiaries in the project are from different nationalities contributes to the social cohesion process and the increase in academic success of children helps to curb dropout rates.

20 Challenges:

• High number of volunteers and children who wanted to participate program • Economic support for volunteers needed for their transportation costs • Lack of sufficient training venues

Practice:

• More personnel are employed for coordination of the project • Per diem is provided for volunteers who regularly participate in the project • At Turkish Red Crescent centers, rooms designated for other projects are scheduled for homework support sessions.

Impact:

• 328 volunteers have participated in trainings and 140 of them were evaluated as eligible; they have been taking part in the project as volunteer teachers. • In 15 cities, in 19 centres 2639 children were provided with homework support. • Providing structured and well-defined platforms and projects helps children and adults to overcome prejudice towards other cultures and enhance cohesion within society. Volunteachers project has set a successful example of such platforms for Turkish Red Crescent.

Lessons Learned and Ways Forward:

• Vulnerable children should be provided integrated interventions including psychosocial support and educational projects. Turkish Red Crescent has developed such strategy in its Centers that helps disadvantaged children with a multi-sector approach. • To expand the scope of the project, volunteer trainings will be implemented in branches (which have volunteer centers) in different cities and the number of children who benefit from such services will be increased.

21 TURKISH RED CRESCENT MIGRATION SERVICES DIRECTORATE BEST PRACTICES

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