Aim: Palmyra, in the Homs district of Syria was one of the hardest hit areas during the Syrian civil war. Known and celebrated across the world for its tangible and intangible cultural heritage, its decimation at the hands of the ISIS, led to a scenario of abject destruction of lives and livelihoods and near total desertion of the town. Towards the end of active conflict, a small number of returnees could be noticed that inspired our pilot action in the name of project PEER. The core aim was to test a methodology and approach for community engagement and to bring back a sense of ownership of their cultural heritage. Through this project, we tried to channelize the community of returnees in Palmyra and support in re-building a sense of social coherence
Results: Since there is no integrated infrastructure to support community based activities in Palmyra, our first action was to rehabilitate a destroyed house as a community centre. Named as the Palmyra house, this centre is also fully equipped for utilization as a training facility in the future for any willing humanitarian/development actor. In this centre, we conducted several community focused activities to usher in a sense of social coherence in a very disrupted social setting. Activities included PSS sessions for the children, life skills trainings to willing members of the local community, story-telling sessions to foster a sense of pride in their heritage and traditions, elderly care, among others. Due to community aspirations, 4 vocational trainings were also imparted to both women and men. On the cultural heritage front, the community attended workshops on heritage awareness, consciousness and documentation techniques. A significant outcome of this pilot has been the registration of a Voluntary Association by community members of Palmyra.
