The DRA Innovation Fund (DIF) is a fund created by the Dutch Relief Alliance with financial support of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. DRA is receiving support of DCHI for facilitating the current 2019 Call on Safety & Protection. See the link to the DCHI website here.

DRA partners have specified their challenges and have defined the skill, knowledge and experience they need to develop the best approaches.

The four focus areas are:

(1) How can we tackle barriers that exist to access services related to safety and protection for the most vulnerable people in need of these services

When helping vulnerable people, there are almost always barriers to overcome. These can be of a nature that is political, social, war-related, geographical, etc. If these barriers can be taken down effectively, the needs of these people can be adequately met.

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(2) How to improve approaches to addressing social/gender norms (harmful) & power structures in humanitarian settings

We want to thoroughly understand the perspective and needs of women and children, as wel as how to support a fair division of resources. The Dutch Relief Alliance Partners are looking for innovative approaches to address this.

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(3) How can we increase the mental health & Psychological wellbeing of people affected by humanitarian settings?

Mental health and psychological wellbeing are important in effective humanitarian aid. The Dutch Relief Alliance wants to develop and scale up effective methods to help people who are affected by a crisis.

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(4) How can we better facilitate communities to drive the design and implementation of the responses to their safety and protection challenges?

No two scenarios are the same and every community is different. The Dutch Relief Alliance is looking for ways to let affected communities take the lead in the humanitarian aid approach that is offered by organisations.

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We are excited to hear from you and to see what kinds of collaboration and innovation will come out of this! For more information, please reach out to:

Martine Bergwerff – Chair of the DRA Innovation Working Group (martine.bergwerff@savethechildren.nl)
Richard Kooge – Vice-Chair of the DRA Innovation Working Group (kooge@carenederland.org)