Relief Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons Settlements in Emergency
Using mobile response teams to support displaced people living in informal settlements
Iraq
Humanitarian Assistance 
Community Cohesion & Protection 
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene 2019-2020
UNOCHA
For the Relief Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons Settlements in Emergency (RAISE) project, our mobile response teams identified displaced people living in informal settlements who might otherwise miss out on critical support and services. Work aimed to help the community organize around immediate needs, while also looking ahead to safe, voluntary returns to the homes they had left behind. Activities reached more than 68,500 people with efforts including health and mental health referrals, legal assistance, and improved site maintenance.
Resident feedback and ideas were encouraged and considered in activity design and implementation. In each informal site, a Women’s Committee was established to support income generation activities. Women were provided with materials for sewing and knitting to encourage production and sale of items, leading several women to open small shops. A Maintenance Committee was established to engage people in upgrading camp infrastructure. In one instance, a committee oversaw rehabilitation of an existing water line that had been contaminated, providing more than 100 families with clean, safe drinking water. Youth Committees were started to lead recreation activities, such as football and volleyball tournaments, to keep young people active and engaged.
