Community Development of Syrian Refugees through Housing Strategies

Over 5.6 million people have fled across borders from the war in Syria since 2011 that have devastated their homes and are in dire need of humanitarian assistance; as war continues, the hope to return home is fading fast. Syrian refugees displaced by the war face a number of hardships in their host countries; as the crises enters its tenth year many survive in abysmal conditions in refugee camps, the majority of refugees live in poverty, having exhausted any savings they were able to bring and often facing limited opportunities to earn a living. Refugee housing is often seen as temporary structures as there exists a possibility repatriation and hence these structures deems to be culturally insensitive and such temporary nature of living conditions is at the heart of the problem of refugee housing and they demand immediate attention. This thesis addresses the neglected aspect of durable and adaptive solutions that is often overlooked in the field of study and proposes recommendations that are culturally viable to such communities providing them better living conditions and opportunities required to create stable and self-sustaining societies. During the process, it looks into the drawbacks of existing housing provisions for the Syrian refugees and find ways to solve these negatives by establishing a relation between the criteria for adequate housing as devised by UN-Habitat and compare them with sustainability principles within Islamic traditions and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.Following a descriptive methodology, the primary and secondary data were gathered through surveys and literature study respectively, and then analyzed using a qualitative approach considering different variables and criteria. This brought out the discrepancies and drawbacks that needed to be improvised, consequently providing the findings projected through this research. The proposed design guidelines were tabulated based on the criteria under the scope of the study, alongside the Islamic principles of sustainability and the SDGs they depict. There exists a need to ensure that the challenges and responsibilities are shared and equal opportunities are established globally among communities in order to attain sustainable development. Such relocated societies in reality gives the opportunity to take advantage of the locally available skills and resources. It is, therefore, important to create proposals that affords comfort while simultaneously empower its occupants and establish themselves as successful individuals in the societies that they have relocated into.