Humanity and Resilience: child-friendly spaces in Syria’s protracted conflict

Abstract: This paper seeks to analyse how education and child-friendly spaces impact the resilience of Syrian children affected by the protracted conflict, by ensuring humanity, dignity and protection. It intends to analyse the outcomes of education spaces and specialized educational activities on safety and development leverages, such as resilience building, trauma mitigation, cognitive development or social cohesion. It will be looking into structures such as Save the Children and Hurras Network organizations within the framework of the INEE (Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies) Minimum Standards, as well as the humanitarian principles framework and the implications of the prioritization of neutrality over humanity regarding education access. Education fosters individual and societal resilience while reinforcing humanitarian efforts in child protection, mental health, psychosocial support, and livelihood recovery. The findings aim to challenge the perception of education as supplementary aid on humanitarian projects and, instead, center it as a core foundation on crisis response.