Humanitarian Community Life

HCL Overview

Launched in mid 2021, Humanitarian Community Life (HCL) began as an online community initiative focused on building emotional support and life-skill capacity for people in Syria, with an emphasis on youth and workers in the humanitarian field. HCL is now expanding into doing remote trainings for humanitarian workers and youth in Yemen.

The International Forum for Understanding sponsors HCL with SDG2030.me a primary cooperation partner.

HCL: Phase 1

Hundreds of social media posts (in Arabic) were created on specific skills  for disaster and recovery periods, including

  • Emotional Skills: dealing with stress, loneliness, waiting, failure, loss
  • Life Skills: building self-knowledge, self-esteem, problem solving
  • Technical Skills for humanitarian workers


These posts are being shared on a dedicated HCL Facebook page.

HCL: Phase 2

In cooperation with local institutions and organizations in Yemen – HCL has designed an intensive remote training program (in Arabic) for disaster and recovery periods on: Emotional Skills, Life Skills, and Technical Skills.

In honor of World Humanitarian Day, HCL rolled out this initiative in August 2022.

The pilot project for this remote training will begin in September 2022, specifically aimed at benefiting humanitarian workers and youth in Yemen.

HCL: Phase 3

To facilitate scaling, HCL plans to expand its training program to other geographical and topic areas while creating an array of multimedia offerings accessible to those in last-mile settings. In the spirit of Sustainable Development Goal 17, HCL will pursue strategic partnerships in implementation.

HCL Project Team

Layla Barakeh is a humanitarian worker and disaster-management specialist based in Syria. She specializes in mental health and psychosocial support and livelihood training. Layla is the Director of Humanitarian Community Life and has designed its training program and related material.

Heather Wokusch and Les Simm serve as active mentors for HCL.

Humanitarian Community Life (HCL) aims to support people in Syria – including humanitarian workers – in disaster and recovery periods on

  • the emotional level: dealing with issues such as stress, loneliness, waiting, failure, and loss
  • the life-skill level: developing skills such as self-knowledge, self-esteem, the art of thinking, and problem solving

Visit Humanitarian Community Life on Facebook!

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