Executive Summary

On Tuesday the 19th of January, a training of volunteers regarding the awareness campaign of the Solid Waste Reduction project in Arsal was held online through Google Meet platform. The training is conducted as part of the MASAR for Local Governments programme, a project financed by the EU Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis (EUTF Madad). The main project will be implemented by a partnership between the International Orthodox Christian Charities – IOCC and VNG International. It will be focused on an area of 10,000 people whereby the IOCC will construct a Solid Waste Management facility with its equipment while VNGI provides for the awareness campaign including training of trainers, door-to-door, school activities and procurement of bins and advertisement as well as helping the municipality of Arsal in optimizing collection routes.

The training of the volunteers is the first of many awareness campaign activities in Arsal. The goal of that training is to present to the volunteers the Solid Waste Reduction strategy of VNG International in Arsal as well as interpersonal communication with other citizens and how to acquire good recycling practices as citizens. These volunteers will later become trainers who will coordinate door-to-door activities in their village as well as convey the awareness message for their fellow citizens, refugees and other volunteers who will later join the campaign.

Because of a complete lockdown imposed by national authorities to curb the spread of Covid-19, the training was conducted online through Google Meet platform. Training lasted an hour and a half with an hour of presentation and 30 minutes of lively and smooth discussion between partners and beneficiaries. Consortium partners ACCD also attended the training as well as implementing partners IOCC.

The main take-away from the meeting were as follow:

• Volunteers are in favor and excited about the project.
• Estimation by volunteers who themselves are citizens of Arsal is that most of the inhabitants and refugees will be receptive of such project and sort from the source.
• The more VNGI trains people and hold conferences regarding Solid Waste Reduction, the better.
• Public awareness conferences are expected to happen once lockdown is lifted.
• Lively discussion was focused on campaign material which were approved by all participants.
• Presentations and other material were shared with the participants at the end of the training

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of VNG International and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

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