Move comes as part of ongoing institution-building efforts in Kurdish provinces.

Sensitivities heightened as refugees add to burdens placed on government-held area. (Beit Yashout and Latakia, Syria) -Residents of the town of Beit Yashout in Syria’s coastal area are angry at their local government’s refusal to set up a subsidised bakery, arguing that an influx of displaced people has created added pressures there.

Tensions between Syrian rebel forces stationed in civilian areas are causing problems for residents, who say they risk being caught in crossfire or regime strikes.

After Kafr Nabel experienced severe destruction and its walls were covered with obscene scrawls that were an affront to common decency, a group of local youth came together to rejuvenate the walls and bring colour and life back to certain neighbourhoods as part of an initiative they called “Aish” (Life). The head of the campaign, Hassan al-Ahmad, 26, summarized it: […]

Salam al-Saadi (Damascus, Syria)— Ahed left the Qaboun area on the outskirts of Damascus along with his wife and small child hoping to find a new place to live. But he ended up moving continuously between his parents’ and his in-laws’ home for four months while looking for a place to rent.

(Saraqeb, Syria)—The walls of the city of Saraqeb in Idlib province reflect the reality of the Syrian situation in all its iterations over the past three years. After the outbreak of the protests, government forces stormed the city in March 2011, and the security crackdown escalated the summer of that same year, with military opposition forces beginning to organize that […]

Mariam Abdullah* (Damascus, Syria) - Nawal, 35, used to run a kindergarten in the town of Daraya near Damascus before it was bombed, leaving her life’s work in ruins. She lived through a siege that left her hungry, sick and terrified until she fled in October 2013 with others to a safer area in the Damascus suburbs. She and her […]

(Qamishli, Syria) - In the darkness of constant power cuts in Qamishli, where children are unable to keep up with their favorite television shows and cartoons, the Sawishka group, an organization for social development, has come up with a new way to entertain children by reviving the tradition of the Hakawati, the figure most akin to an old grandfather who […]

Salam al-Saadi (Damascus, Syria)—Rami spends many hours every day trying to surf the Internet from his home in the suburbs of Harasta near the capital of Damascus. The twenty-something youth, a law student at Damascus University, complains of the “constant interruptions of network service, its slowness and lack of effectiveness.”