We should have started yesterday! There is an urgency to help the people of Syria that cannot wait until there is peace in Syria…
This is the story of the Syria Justice Innovation Process. The story of a diverse group of Syrians from all walks of life who decided to put their differences aside to achieve one goal: help the people of Syria solve their daily most pressing justice problems in simple, innovative, and impactful ways. Hand in hand they managed to reach more than 200,000 Syrians. They helped women, children, refugees, and families attain a brighter future.
What is their story and how did they manage to make an impact?
Since 2018, the Syria Justice Innovation Process (SJIP) has identified the legal problems facing the people of Syria. With support and expertise from committed justice practitioners, SJIP has produced practical and innovative tools to help address Syrians’ most pressing daily legal problems. This effort has involved forging new partnerships, coordinating knowledge platforms, and financing innovative models to scale justice innovations in Syria.
✓ Six justice innovation goals
The first step of the SJIP journey revolved around a series of four dialogues. Based on research and technical sessions, the team assessed the everyday legal problems of Syrians and developed a set of six Justice Innovation Goals:
- Women’s protection
- Access to personal documentation
- Housing, land, and property rights
- Child protection
- Access to public services such as healthcare and education
- Safety and protection
At the end of the fourth dialogue, the participants prioritised two of these six goals: reducing violence against women and providing safe access to personal documentation. Both goals were judged as the ones the stakeholders could influence the most in the coming three years considering their knowledge and expertise.
The innovation process
The second step of these Syrians’ journey was the innovation process. The purpose of the innovation process was to help Syrians solve their daily legal problems in the two topics of violence against women and personal documentation and make a positive impact on their lives through innovation. The innovation process consisted of two components:
- Two Justice innovation Labs: Some Syrian experts took part in Justice Innovation Labs that emphasised a systemic, collaborative, and experimental approach to justice. The sessions combined evidence-based approaches to understand actual needs on the ground. This, in turn, led the group to devise innovative solutions that could empower women subject to violence or help Syrians access their personal documents.
- Small-scale initiatives: Additionally, HiiL scouted, selected, and supported 17 small-scale innovations focusing on both violence against women and personal documentation.
The result
Hand in hand, through complementarity of knowledge and expertise, challenging but constructive sessions, and with respect and appreciation, this united network of Syrians has contributed to reducing violence against women and facilitated access to personal documents for 200,000 Syrians including women, families, children, and refugees. The group proved that innovation is possible in Syria and that putting differences aside to achieve one common goal is possible.
The next chapter of their journey
This group will continue its journey to help solve the justice issues most affecting Syrians. And with a commitment to finding the right solutions for the right contexts, the group and SJIP will continue to support and develop scalable, people-centred solutions that can help tackle the most pressing legal problems facing Syrians.
Scaling Innovations
Personal documentation
- Mobile legal clinics: Establish mobile legal clinics in Northern Syria and in Lebanon to provide free legal consultation and representation to Syrians in an effort to prevent statelessness and legalise the status of Syrians. This innovation helped register marriages and birth certificates and ensured entire families have a better future.
- Personal documentation app: an application offering easy access to personal documents and guidance on how to access these documents. Through this innovation the process of getting personal documents is made easier on the user.
- SyrGo: an online service that mediates between the client and the lawyers in order to obtain personal documents in an easier and more efficient way.
Violence against women
- Yasmina: A chatbot, providing adaptive legal advice to Syrian women survivors of domestic violence and other forms of human rights violations. This application provides such women with the capacity to remain completely anonymous while also listing specialised entities able to offer in person support.
- Survivors: empower economically Syrian women in Jordan, who have been subject to violence so they become financially independent by helping them sell their products.
- “Warm home”: A board game distributed for free with Syrian bread to raise awareness on early child marriage.
For more information and updates, visit the SJIP website.
