Zakeyeh stands outside her home in Jordan. their households.
Approximately 70 per cent of Syrian refugees across the Middle East and North Africa region live below the poverty line. Paying for basic essentials is often a struggle. It is a challenge that often puts refugees’ families in dire risk, often sending them into a “spiral of vulnerability,” forcing them to make difficult choices such as skipping meals or taking their children out of school.
With the cash assistance that the family receives, Zakeyeh says her younger siblings, Noha, 13, and Ali, 11, are able to continue to attend school, and that they haven’t been forced to go and work and provide for their family like some — a chance that Zakeyeh herself has missed.
Arriving in Jordan in 2012 when she was 10 years old, Zakeyeh has spent most of her life here caring for Mohammad, her mother with health issues and four younger siblings. When talking about her daily routine, she is both focused and matter-of-fact.
“As soon as I wake up, I prepare breakfast for my siblings, wake them up and make sure they get dressed. Then I see if my brother needs anything. I cook and assist my family at the house,” she says. “I understand what my mother needs and I give her a hand. So, it’s a good feeling to be an older sibling.”
Still, she recalls the life she had to flee in Syria with fondness and longing.
“I remember how different our life used to be. I used to go with my cousins to play and hang around. For me, life was much lovelier,” Zakeyeh recalls. “I still have cousins in Syria. I always check whether they are doing well or not. Whether they miss us or not. I miss my childhood.”
With longing for her past and responsibility for her present, she still dreams of what her future could hold.
“I would like to study,” Zakeyeh says. “I would like to be a teacher, so I could tell students all about life.”
« Four ways cash assistance helps refugees Protection
One-third of UNHCR’s cash assistance is designed to meet specific protection purposes such as urgent needs of refugees and others of concern. Survivors and people at risk of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) received cash assistance, along with counselling and livelihoods support, in countries including Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Morocco and Lebanon.
Education Refugees highlighted that having the opportunity to pay the school and teachers themselves significantly improved their status in the community and their influence on their children’s education.
Shelter
In Kakuma, in northwestern Kenya, refugees build their permanent shelters at costs between 11 and 14 per cent lower than government agencies or NGOs.
Basic Emergency Needs
Cash for shelter is increasingly part of cash grants for basic necessities, including in Niger, where UNHCR assisted hard- to-reach internally displaced persons with mobile money.
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©UNHCR/Hannah Maule-ffinch
©UNHCR/Hannah Maule-ffinch
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