Launching a digital channel, distributing healthy materials, and forming volunteer teams within the national campaign for the emergency social response

 Within the framework of the “National Campaign for the  Emergency Social Response” that has recently approved by the Cabinet to support the most needy categories, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor started its procedures by launching a digital channel, distributing food hampers and health packages , and forming volunteer teams in various governorates.

The digital channel “www.ncsr.sy” aimed at collecting data and requests for the most needy categories in cooperation with “MTN”. The channel started to receive requests from all governorates for the most needy categories of the elderly 70 years and over, the families that take care of the disabled, the daily workers and the self-employed whose works were suspended as a result of the precautionary measures taken by the government to deal with the Coronavirus, according to the Director of Planning and International Cooperation in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor Mahmoud Alkwa .

On the other hand and within the executive procedures of the campaign, the Ministry formed volunteer teams with a number of ten thousand and eight hundred volunteers from various governorates. These teams work with neighborhood committees and administrative units and in coordination with the ministries of Social Affairs and Labor, Local Administration and Environment and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

The volunteer teams are working to help distribute food hampers, AlKwa stated, referring to the distribution of 80 thousand food and health hampers so far in Damascus, its countryside, Tartus and Lattakia, with the participation of a number of NGOs. AlKwa pointed out that 375 warehouses have been equipped to supply food and health materials to be distributed.

The volunteer teams also assist people who cannot register in the electronic digital channel, especially those with disabilities and the elderly, to enter the channel and fill out their data, so that these categories are registered.

On the other hand, the Ministry formed, within the campaign, volunteer teams working in the health field, and numbering two thousand three hundred doctors and nurses to foster the activities and works implemented by the Ministry of Health in all governorates.

Alkwa pointed out that the Ministry also allocated a bank account in its favor to attract financial contributions and allocate it to support efforts to reduce the burdens on workers and address the social repercussions resulting from precautionary measures to tackle the novel Coronavirus.

AlKwa indicated that the Ministry has circulated to its directorates not to accept the registration of any resignation of workers from the private sector during the current period to ensure that no workers are laid off in addition to the follow-up of employers in this sector and ensure that they continue to give their employees salaries.

It is noteworthy that the cabinet approved on April 5, the “National Plan for Emergency Social Response” with the aim of mobilizing all the efforts of the official authorities concerned and the civil and local society to support the most needy categories after checking in all the necessary data in coordination with the federations of the concerned chambers and the Federation of Trade Unions as well as the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor.

Inas Abdulkareem