Internal Review of DRC Community Centers in Damascus (Syria)

DRC has been operating in Syria since 2008. From the beginning, Community Centers (CCs) were an important and integrated component of DRCs overall program portfolio, consisting of community services, quality education and livelihood support. Since 2008, the CC component progressively expanded, both in terms of geographical coverage as well as the types of services offered within CCs. Currently, DRC maintains five CCs in Damascus. In addition, DRC Syria has opened two more CCs outside the capital (Homs and Daraa. Within less than two years, considerable experience in managing CCs in the context of Syria has been made. Against this background, it was decided to recapture and document the main experiences made during the implementation period from 2008 to 10. In the light of staff turnover and the need for institutional memory, an internal review was conducted with the purpose to describe the model and review the past implementation period against parameters such as relevance, coverage, outcome and sustainability.