منحة تأسيسية للقطاع الصحي: من الدعم المباشر إلى الاستدامة المجتمعية

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Founding Grant for the Health Sector: From Direct Support to Community Sustainability

Because health was where it began, SAS has allocated about $104,000 to keep the local health teams running. It also funds a gradual move from direct funding to locality funds and a system that matches community contributions.

This includes transitional grants to keep the teams working through August and September 2026, and founding matching contributions during October and November. These prepare the service to move to a sustainable, shared funding model.

We built these teams together starting in 2024. Their unsung heroes were on the front line, treating the wounded in their homes when patients could not be moved and the roads were cut.

Under the matching system, SAS contributes one dollar for every dollar a locality raises, to cover staff compensation and emergency medicines. Matching is in place in 42 localities, and we are working to extend it to 25 more. Contributions from residents and the diaspora then become the foundation that keeps the service going, and contributions from SAS and other donors support them rather than replace them.

With an average monthly contribution of about $220 from each locality, this essential health service can be sustained.

Funding, August to November 2026

As set out in Proposal SYR-2026-P2, submitted to SAS by the implementing partner, the Syriana–Swaida Sustainable Aid Program:

Health services in the 67 rural localities cost $27,606 a month, of which SAS pays $18,616. The teams in Swaida city (22) and Shahba city (6) are covered by a separate proposal (SYR-2026-P3). Contributions are paid into each locality’s own fund; the locality decides the intervention, sets eligibility and oversees delivery. The per-locality allocation is listed in the Arabic section above.

Local Health Teams: A Year of Work in Numbers

As promised in our announcement of the locality funds, this is a summary of what the local teams we built together since 2024 have achieved. The unsung heroes of these teams were on the front line. They treated the wounded in their homes and provided life-saving care when patients could not be moved and the roads were cut. Since Black July 2025, the results are as follows.

Humanitarian impact

• 76,000 home visits to emergency and chronic cases and to bedridden patients, around the clock, with no distinction between rich and poor.
• $391,000 of your donations through SAS generated services with an estimated value of about $683,000 in one year (July 2025 to July 2026). The cost to diaspora donors was no more than $3.50 per visit.
• Its transparency and documented results helped the project attract a further $429,000 from international donors. Of this, $355,000 went directly to the localities.

Dignified employment

• About 900 jobs. These were 701 nursing, social and administrative staff, plus 200 university students in a cash-for-work programme.
• Hundreds of training sessions for health, social and administrative staff, to raise the quality of service and build expertise that stays in the community.

Community organisation

• 101 teams in 92 localities, covering the whole of Swaida. They are organised into service teams, administrative teams and advisory bodies that include representatives from each neighbourhood.
• A local service structure that grew beyond health. It became a trusted channel for social services, agriculture and aid. Through it, the teams built 15,000 home gardens with limited administrative costs.

From one village to 101 teams

• The project started in a single village in April 2023 and had 44 teams by March 2025. After Black July it expanded as an emergency response to 101 teams, working today in 92 localities of villages, towns and city neighbourhoods. Teams from displaced localities kept their own identity.
• From the start of 2024 to July 2026, the local health teams answered more than 126,000 cases in people’s homes.
• A locality averages about 5,000 people: a city neighbourhood, a village, or a group of small villages. Each is divided into about 20 neighbourhoods. Three volunteers are now chosen by lot from each neighbourhood to give an independent community voice that follows diaspora-funded projects and helps hold them to account.

Three stones for the price of one: $391,000 generated an impact of about $1.17 million

• The first stone is the grant itself. About $391,000 paid for the service and medicines, most of it as compensation and jobs for 701 people from the localities.
• The second stone is international support: $429,000, of which about $355,000 went directly to the localities and the rest to training, capacity building and monitoring.
• The third stone is the extra value the service created for families. An economic study of July 2025 to July 2026 data estimated the total value of the service at about $683,000. SAS’s documented contribution over the same period was $261,402. Removing it, so diaspora funding is not counted twice, leaves $421,286 of added value for families and the community.

Three stages, one course of stone at a time

• Founding grant: we fund the service at first, to show in practice how local and diaspora resources can be used, and to build the capacity to manage it.
• Matching: the locality covers half of the grant from its diaspora funds and residents’ contributions, averaging about $220 a month, and we match its contribution.
• Local sustainability: the health service moves gradually to the locality’s own fund, and outside support moves on to founding new services alongside health, in education, agriculture, water and social services.

The next step

The next phase starts with a founding grant in each locality’s fund. SAS will match the locality’s contribution dollar for dollar to cover staff compensation and emergency medicines. The locality’s contribution averages about $220 a month. Contact your locality’s team or SAS to activate your fund and donate to it directly, at zero cost to your donation.

The move to matching does not end the grants. It makes them a lever for the community’s own effort, not a replacement for it.

With love,
Swaida American Society (SAS)